Equities off days high; ITC hits six-month high, Easy Trip hits fresh all-time high!

Market Update at 10:10 AM: Indian benchmark indices opened the session on a buoyant note on Thursday; however, it failed to sustain at higher levels and pared gains after hitting a fresh all-time high. Nifty is down by 50 points from the day’s high and is seen trading with minuscule gains of 9 points at 17,528 levels.   

Majority of the sectors are trading in red with Nifty Media being the top loser. On the flip side, Nifty FMCG and Nifty Bank turned out to be the top gainers. Nifty FMCG has gained over 1.5 per cent, courtesy ITC. ITC has jumped more than 6.5 per cent and also, touched fresh six-month high, backed by a huge spurt in the volume.   

One more stock that has gained traction in today’s session is Easy Trip Planners. It soared over 14 per cent to touch a fresh all-time high. 

Wednesday turned out to be a wonderful day for the Indian benchmark indices as Nifty ended the day at a fresh closing high of 17,519.45, up by nearly 1 per cent. Among the sectoral indices, barring Nifty Media, all other indices ended in green with Nifty PSU Bank gaining the most i.e. 2.83 per cent, followed by Nifty IT. Meanwhile, the merry period continued for the broader markets with Nifty Midcap 100 adding over 1 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 gaining 0.65 per cent.  

On the daily chart, Nifty has formed a strong bullish candle. With this, the index has witnessed a resolute breakout of six-day long consolidation. Going forward, we expect the index to continue its momentum on the upside and test the levels of 17,620 in the near term. Besides, this target is based on the 184-point consolidations of six trading sessions. Furthermore, if we observe weekly options data, there has been a massive addition of open interest in the broad range of 17,400-17,500 Put options.   

The 17,400 Put option has seen the addition of a little more than 36 lakh shares in the open interest while 17,500 Put option witnessed nearly 51.56 lakh shares in the open interest on Wednesday itself. The highest open interest on the put side stands at 17,400 strike price, followed by 17,500 strike price. If Nifty continues to stay above the level of 17,500, we expect that the highest open interest on the put side would shift higher towards the 17,500-strike price, which would result in an incremental move happening on the upside.   

Given that on Thursday we have weekly options expiry, there could be bouts of volatility in the markets; hence, traders should keep trailing stop-loss near the prior trading session low.