Ahead of Market: 10 things that will decide stock market action on Friday

The Indian stock market saw divergence in its benchmark indices on Thursday, as the Sensex closed in the red on its weekly expiry day following sharp volatility during the closing auction session, while the Nifty ended the day in the green.

During the closing auction session (CAS), Sensex’s indicative price spiked around 180 points in 10 minutes to 74,588, only to soon erase all gains and slip into the red. Sensex dropped over 273 points from its CAS high to close at 74,315, overall recording 22 point loss for the day. Nifty 50 meanwhile overall gained 53 points to end the session near 23,271.

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Here's how analysts read the market pulse

The anticipated Fed rate hike, along with easing bond yields, offered temporary support to global equities and reinforced expectations of gradually moderating inflation, said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Investments. Despite this, domestic markets remained volatile but ended higher, supported by value buying following the recent correction, he added.

“Investor sentiment is likely to stay cautious amid concerns over a possible broader rate-tightening cycle, driven by ongoing Middle East tensions and the risk of U.S. tariff. Mid- and small-cap stocks continued to outperform as investors favored companies with strong earnings visibility, solid order books, and healthy balance sheets, particularly in the capital goods, industrial, defence, power, and healthcare sectors,” according to the analyst.

US stocks

The major US stock indexes jumped on Thursday as a pullback in oil prices boosted sentiment, with the Federal Reserve's first rate hike under Chair Kevin Warsh reassuring investors of the central bank's commitment to tackling inflation.

The policy decision addressed a chronic source of anxiety, allowing investors to return to favorites. Technology shares gained, with Nvidia and Amazon rising nearly 2% each.

The gains will be crucial for investors in the second half of September, historically a weak month for equities. The benchmark S&P 500 has lost 1.7% so far this month.

European markets

European shares climbed on Thursday, with risk sentiment boosted by lower oil prices and a pause in the global bond selloff after the U.S. Federal Reserve delivered a widely anticipated interest rate hike.

The pan-European STOXX 600 rose 0.5% to 640.21 points, with most regional bourses following suit. Germany's DAX also climbed 0.5%.

Euro zone bond yields nudged lower on Thursday, reversing an earlier rise, as oil prices fell and UK gilts rallied sharply after the Bank of England said it would pause debt sales under its quantitative tightening programme.

The BoE left interest rates unchanged, as expected, while also setting out a long-term plan to offload its almost £500 billion ($670 billion) of bond holdings, which included a halt to sales until April and the end of sales of long-dated bonds entirely.

Most active stocks in terms of turnover

HDFC Bank (Rs 1,542 crore), Syrma SGS Technologies (Rs 1,494 crore), IFCI (Rs 1,376 crore), Policy Bazaar (Rs 1,169 crore), Tata Chemicals (Rs 1,119 crore), ICICI Bank (Rs 1,065 crore) and RIL (Rs 965 crore) were among the most active stocks on NSE in value terms. Higher activity in a counter in value terms can help identify the counters with the highest trading turnovers in the day.

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Most active stocks in volume terms

Vodafone Idea (Traded shares: 18.65 crore), IFCI (Traded shares: 17.69 crore), Yes Bank (Traded shares: 6.99 crore), Pine Labs (Traded shares: 4.79 crore), JP Power (Traded shares: 4.39 crore), Ola Electric (Traded shares: 4.34 crore) and New India Assurance Company (Traded shares: 3.47 crore) were among the most actively traded stocks in volume terms on NSE.

Stocks showing buying interest

Tega Industries, HBL Power, Syrma SGS Technology, New India Assurance Company, Tata Chemicals, JK Cement and Tata Investment Corp were among the stocks that witnessed strong buying interest from market participants.

52-week high

Among the ones which hit their 52-week highs on NSE included Aegis Vopak Terminals and Ipca Labs.

Stocks seeing selling pressure

Stocks which witnessed significant selling pressure were Aditya Infotech, Policy Bazaar, Five-Star Business, CreditAccess Grameen, Patanjali Foods, Chennai Petro and Meesho.

52-week low

Among the ones which hit their 52-week lows on NSE included Bank of Baroda, United Breweries, Ircon International, Whirlpool India, Wipro, Aditya Birla Lifestyle and Tata Elxsi.

Sentiment meter favours bulls

Out of the 3,651 stocks that traded on the NSE on September 17, Thursday, 2,262 stocks witnessed advances, 1,279 stocks saw declines while 110 stocks remained unchanged.

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