191 smallcaps shine with double-digit gains in a positive market week

Domestic markets were largely positive in the week gone by even though there were no fresh triggers post the election outcome. The broader market outperformed the benchmarks during the week as sentiments were in favour for growth-based stocks.

During the week, as many as 191 smallcap stocks delivered double digit returns with 13 of them gaining 25% or more. PTC Industries was leading the smallcap pack at 35%, followed by Avantel at 33% and Honda India Power at 30.47%.

About 21 stocks including Jubilant Industries, Reliance Infrastructure, Agarwal Industrial Corp, DCX Systems, Bajaj Hindustan, Dredging Corp among others have offered returns between 20-25% during the week.

In the midcap segment, nine stocks including Schaeffler India, Oil India, Oracle Financial among others have risen in double digits. While Schaeffler gained 16%, Oil India and Oracle were up over 13% each.

Among the Sensex pack, Ultratech Cement topped the charts with 7.4% returns, followed by Larsen and Toubro at 4.3% and Power Grid at 3.9%.The outcome of the Fed meeting was hawkish during the week as market expectations have shifted from two rate cuts in CY24 to just one. However, the stability of US inflation provided some relief.What should investors do?
Next week will be a truncated one with investors enjoying a long weekend due to Bakrid on Monday. The market is now awaiting fresh triggers, possibly a favourable budget which is likely to be announced next month.On the macro front, domestic CPI data suggests a gradual decline in inflation. “Though the last mile towards the inflation target remains sticky, given the expectation of a normal monsoon, investors are hopeful that the MPC will be one step closer to the easing cycle,” said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.

Investors will also track some key interest rate decisions by the Bank of Japan and ECB, along with US GDP data which will likely have an influence on the global rate cut trajectory.

“We expect market uptrend to continue next week supported by positive macro trends, expectation of sustained government spending and policy continuity, healthy monsoon and strong earnings,” said Siddhartha Khemka, Head – Retail Research, Motilal Oswal.

Technically, Nifty continued to show range-bound action within 23300-23500 levels and still there is no early signs of any breakouts on either side.

A decisive move above 23500 levels is likely to open an upside breakout and a slide below 23300 levels could mean a chance of downside breakout of the range movement in the near term, said Nagaraj Shetti of HDFC Securities.

With data inputs from Ritesh Presswala

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of Economic Times)