Sensex, Nifty look to gain for third-day straight; SBI, Bajaj Auto top gainers on Dalal Street

Sensex and Nifty continued to march upwards, opening with gains on Wednesday morning. The benchmark indices entered Wednesday’s trading session on the back of two days of consecutive gains. S&P BSE Sensex was up over 200 points or 0.54% while the 50-stock Nifty was just shy of the 11,450 mark. Global cues were mixed but analysts had said that Yesterday’s closing levels signals more upside for Nifty 50. Volatility slipped once again while midcap and smallcap stocks once again outperformed benchmarks.

Top gainers: L&T was the top gainer on the opening bell but soon it gave up the spot to State Bank of India. SBI was up over 2%, followed by Bajaj Auto. on BSE Midcap, Adani Enterprises was the top gainer up over 8% followed by Varroc Engineering. Among BSE Smallcap constituents, Cigniti Technologies Texmaco Rail were the top gainers. 

Top drags: HCL Technologies was once again on the wrong end of the table, slipping over 1%. It was followed by Tata Steel and Nestle India. On BSE Midcap, Amara Raja Batteries and Kansai Nerolac were the top drags. Rattan India Power was the top drag among smallcap stocks, falling over 5%.

Hitting fresh highs: SBI Cards once again hit a fresh new high trading at Rs 836 per share. Ambuja Cement, E Clerx, Jindal Steel, Mindtree, and Tata Consumer products were some of the other stocks hitting fresh 52-week high values. 11 of the BSE 500 constituents were up trading at new high values. 

Sectoral watch: Among Nifty sectoral indices, all were trading with gains. Nifty IT did slip into the red but regained momentum later on. The Nifty PSU Bank index was trading over 2% higher. Nifty Media and Nifty Auto were the other top sectoral gainers.

Outlook: “For the day, one should implement the strategy of buy on the dip for intraday. The positional trader should wait for the levels 11320-11350 for a small swing trade. The bears should have an aggressive hedge in case of Nifty heavyweights and indices positions,” said Vishal Wagh, Research Head, Bonanza Portfolio Ltd. 

Technical Talk: “The Nifty has opened in splendid form going past the 11450 level! We should be targeting 11500 – 11700 levels and this could be achieved during the course of this month’s expiry itself. The support has been upgraded to 11350. A buy on dips strategy can be implemented,” said Manish Hathiramani, proprietary index trader and technical analyst, Deen Dayal Investments.