D-St Indices: D-St indices lose early gains, end flat amid profit booking

Mumbai: India’s equity benchmarks eked out gains on Tuesday, paring most of the early-day upsides after the recent bullish momentum seen in the previous six trading sessions fizzled out. Mid-cap and small-cap stocks ended lower as investors locked in a portion of the profits.

The NSE Nifty advanced 0.04%, or 10.30 points, to finish at 23,668. The BSE Sensex moved 0.04%, or 32.81 points, higher at 78,017. Both indices have gained 5.15% in the previous seven trading sessions.

The Nifty must surge past a crucial hurdle of 24,000 for the newly- found strength to sustain.

“Nifty has completed the pullback, which is expected to be followed by a correction of around 250 to 300 points,” said Vikas Jain, head of research at Reliance Securities. “After consolidation, if Nifty breaks out from the 200-day moving average of 24,000 on strong volumes, then the index can resume the rally.”

Jain said the downside is likely to be limited to 23,200 levels.

Foreigners extended their purchases of Indian stocks, pumping ₹5,372 crore into the market here on Tuesday. They have been buyers in the previous two trading sessions, reversing their recent risk-off sentiment on India. Domestic institutions were sellers worth ₹2,769 crore on Tuesday.The Volatility Index, or VIX-the market’s fear gauge- fell 0.5% to 13.64 on Tuesday. On Monday, the VIX gained 8.9%, suggesting traders see higher risks in the near term after the recent upmove.”Typically, 5-6 days of gains are followed by a pause like today’s session, but it is part of an ongoing uptrend,” said Rohit Sr vastava, founder, indiacharts.com. “Two to three sessions of consolidation are expected but Nifty is expected to move towards 24,200 levels in the near term.”

The Nifty Midcap 150 index and the Smallcap 250 index declined by 0.9% and 1.4%, respectively.