Stock market: Indian equity indices closed marginally lower in a volatile trading session on February 12. At the end of the trading session, the Sensex closed at 76,171.08, down 122.52 points or 0.16 per cent, and the Nifty closed at 23,045.25, down 26.55 points or 0.12 per cent. Today, about 1487 stocks rose, 2334 stocks declined and 85 stocks remained unchanged. M&M, Bharat Electronics, Eicher Motors, ITC and Hero MotoCorp were among the top losers on the Nifty. While SBI Life Insurance, Bajaj Finserv, HDFC Life, Shriram Finance and Tata Steel were the top gainers today. Midcap and smallcap indices declined by 0.5 per cent.
Among different sectors, except PSU banks and metals, all other sectoral indices closed in the red, while realty index declined by around 3 per cent.
Speaking on the massive sell-off by foreign institutional investors (FIIs), Rohit Srivastava of IndiaCharts said that foreign institutional investors (FIIs) currently hold the largest short position on record in terms of number of contracts. This extremely bearish level suggests that a strong short-covering rally could ensue in case of a positive trigger. So far in February, FIIs have pulled out Rs 17,129.5 crore from the Indian stock markets.
Srivastava said that this is also evident in the open interest of Nifty futures, which has been rising with the fall in the market for the last 10-15 days. Due to this, it has reached the highest level in many years. Heavy negativity in price action indicates that we may be at the bottom in both short and medium term. In such a situation, there is a possibility of recovery in the market in the coming days or weeks. In this recovery, Nifty can move towards 24,000 or above.
From a technical perspective, Jigar Patel, Senior Manager, Equity Research, Anand Rathi Shares and Stock Brokers, believes that Nifty is forming a bottom around 22,800. On January 27, Nifty formed a bottom around 22,800. Today, it has touched that level again. Support is seen for Nifty at this level. On the upside, resistance is expected around 23,450.
Now all eyes are on the retail inflation data coming from both India and America. Investors are keeping an eye on these figures to guess the future movement of the market. According to a Reuters poll, India's retail inflation is expected to fall sharply in January due to slow increase in the prices of food items. The softening of inflation may provide support to the Reserve Bank of India to deal with slow economic growth. Slow economic growth has had a negative impact on corporate income and consumption in recent months.
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