Nifty ends flat; IT and realty indices outperform

Market update at 3.30 PM: Nifty ended flat on Friday while Sensex closed at 61,223. It was a volatile day as Nifty swung in both directions but settled near Thursday’s close.  

In the last hour of the session, Nifty hit the day’s high of 18,286 and then, lost another 40 during the process.  

Only Nifty Realty and Nifty IT indices ended higher i.e. around 1.15 per cent & 0.57 per cent, respectively while the rest of them ended negatively. The top stocks supporting the market were Tata Consumer Products and TCS while the stocks that were weak today included Asian Paints & Axis Bank.  

With key results coming up in the next few days, the next week shall be packed with a lot of action. 

Market update at 1.15 PM: Indices continue to trade lower with Nifty slipping about a quarter per cent and Sensex falling nearly 200 points. The broader markets are trading mixed.   

Among the sectoral indices, Nifty Realty is trading higher by nearly a per cent while the rest of the sectoral indices are flat to negative. Moreover, India VIX is about half a per cent higher.  

Tata Consumer Products and Infosys turned out to be the top gainers while Asian Paints along with Axis Bank continue to drag the market.   

With the weekend around the corner, we might see participants squaring off their risky positions in the view of the news flow that would be coming up in the next two days. Thus, we can expect the market to swing in either direction.  

Market update at 11 AM: Indices are trading lower amid volatility. Nifty has slipped by 0.3 per cent while Sensex lost around 250 points. Moreover, Nifty Midcap is trading flat while Smallcap index is down by over half a per cent. 

All the sectoral indices are trading lower with Nifty IT slipping nearly a per cent. HCL Technologies became the top loser in the initial hour and slipped by nearly 3 per cent, ahead of results. 

The 18,200 happens to be the key level for Nifty, and thus, straddles have been created in the first hour of the session with the expectation that Nifty is likely to trade near the level for some more time. 

Pre-market update: Last night, NASDAQ tumbled about 2.5 per cent while Fed officials were discussing inflation and interest rate hikes. Moreover, Dow Jones fell about half a per cent. 

With such weak global cues, the Asian markets have opened lower with SGX Nifty indicating loss of about 30 points. 

On the last trading day, the FIIs were net sellers again and have sold for about Rs 1,390 crore. With this selling, FIIs have also turned out to be the net sellers for the current month. DIIs, however, have bought for Rs 1,065 crore. 

There’s a news report saying that LIC IPO is expected to open by mid-March with an expectation to raise around Rs 90 thousand crores

HCL Technologies will be declaring its results today. Thus, the focus would be on this stock for the day. Moreover, HDFC Bank is set to declare results on Saturday; so we might see some volatility in HDFC Bank on Friday.