Asian markets trade in red on Thursday morning; will Sensex, Nifty follow suit or continue rallying?

Domestic equity markets have been rallying for three consecutive sessions now. S&P BSE Sensex reached a fresh all-time high on Wednesday and closed above the 50,000 mark for the first time ever. The broader 50-stock NSE Nifty too claimed fresh highs and closed just shy of 14,800. On Thursday morning SGX Nifty was trading 20 points higher, hinting at a flat but positive opening. Equity indices on Wall Street closed flat in the previous trading session while Asian peers were in the red during the early hours of trade. 

What do the charts say: On the technical front, the up-move recorded by Sensex and Nifty in the last three trading sessions has negated the downfall of the earlier six sessions. “This action could be a positive for the market and one may expect further upside in the near term,” said Nagaraj Shetti, Technical Research  Analyst, HDFC Securities.

Support and resistance levels: Markets have created an indecisive candlestick formation as it enters new highs, according to Shrikant Chouhan, Executive Vice President, Equity Technical Research at Kotak Securities. He added that this formation indicates profit-taking at higher levels. “It is advisable to buy on dips or on large supports. Support would be at 14650/14550 level. The base has shifted from 14350 to 14450 levels so keep the last stop loss at 14350 levels. Hurdles would be at 14900 and at 15050,” Chouhan added.

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Global watch: On Wall Street, Dow Jones closed flat with a positive bias on Wednesday along with S&P 500 but NASDAQ was marginally negative. Among Asian peers, Shanghai Composite, Hang Seng, Nikkei 225, TOPIX, and KOSPI were all trading in the red. 

FII and DII trades: Foreign Institutional Investors (FII) bought domestic stock worth Rs 2,520 crore on Wednesday but pulled money out of index futures & options. Domestic Institutional Investors were net sellers of Rs 399 crore. 

Results today: Container Corporation of India, Emkay Global Financial Services, Hero Motocorp, ICRA, Tata Power, Sonata Software, and Gillette India are some of the companies that will report their quarterly earnings today on Dalal Street.