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

The Indian stock market tumbled for the third straight day on Wednesday, with Sensex and Nifty closing in the deep red as soaring oil prices and other concerns spooked investors.

Sensex tumbled over 813 points to close at 74,764, while the Nifty50 dropped around 204 points to end the session at 23,431. The losses wiped off over Rs 2 lakh crore from the total market capitalisation of all companies listed on BSE, pulling it down to Rs 484 lakh crore.

Here's how analysts read the market pulse


"Markets are increasingly pricing in a prolonged Middle East conflict, with continued hostilities and retaliatory actions expected to keep crude oil prices elevated in the near term. Persistent geopolitical uncertainty is making it difficult for major central banks to achieve a balance between growth and inflation, while higher energy costs pose risks to both economic activity and price stability. With bond yields and currencies remaining volatile, investors are likely to adopt a cautious stance, limiting risk appetite and keeping market sentiment subdued,” said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Investments.

US stocks

The main U.S. stock indexes fell on Wednesday, when oil prices surged past the market-sensitive $100-a-barrel mark for the first time since July because of deepening Middle East tensions.

Traders have struggled to look past the seven-month-old U.S.-Iran war, ‌which has heightened fears of a broader regional conflict.

Brent crude held above $100 a barrel after breaching the psychological threshold for the first time in more than six weeks following Iran's claim that it fired ballistic missiles at a U.S. base in Jordan. There were reports of attacks on vessels from both sides, heightening concerns over oil supplies from the region.

Energy was the only sector in the green, advancing 1.7%.

European markets

The pan-European STOXX 600 index dropped 1.2%, while MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe fell 3.39 points, or 0.29%.

The euro edged higher ahead of the European Central Bank's policy decision on Thursday, with markets widely expecting a hike amid inflationary pressures from the Iran war. The ⁠currency rose ‌to a more than one-week high of $1.16493.

Tech view on Nifty

Nifty 50 index on the daily chart formed a third consecutive sizable bearish candle with a lower high and a lower low and a bearish gap above its head (23,635-23,571) signaling continuation of the corrective decline with the Nifty closing below the July low of 23,606, said Pabitro Mukherjee, Deputy Vice President-Research at Bajaj Broking.

“Immediate bias in the index continues to remain down and only a formation of higher high and higher low on a sustained basis in the daily chart will signal a pause in the current down trend. Follow through weakness will signal extension of the last 1-month decline towards then 23,300-23,200 levels in the coming sessions being the 80% retracement of the entire previous up move 23,070-24,774. Pullback attempt from the current oversold territory will face stiff resistance around 23,800-24,000 levels being the recent breakdown area and 20 days EMA. Previous support area is likely to reverse its role and act as resistance in short term,” he added.

Most active stocks in terms of turnover

Graphite India (Rs 3,061 crore), HDFC Bank (Rs 2,714 crore), Coforge (Rs 1,996 crore), ICICI Bank (Rs 1,975 crore), Adani Enterprises (Rs 1,641 crore), Reliance Industries (Rs 1,563 crore), and BSE (Rs 1,436 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.

Most active stocks in volume terms

Vodafone Idea (Traded shares: 53.89 crore), IFCI (Traded shares: 15.65 crore), Reliance Power (Traded shares: 7.21 crore), Suzlon Energy (Traded shares: 5.25 crore), MRPL (Traded shares: 4.75 crore), Tata Steel (Traded shares: 4.6 crore) and Pine Labs (Traded shares: 4.06 crore) were among the most actively traded stocks in volume terms on NSE.

Stocks showing buying interest

Graphite India, Chennai Petro, MRPL, Jindal Stainless, Aegis Logistics, Adani Enterprises and Sarda Energy 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 Graphite India, Chennai Petro, Paytm, Finolex Cables, Craftsman Automation, Sai Life Science and Redington.

Stocks seeing selling pressure

Stocks which witnessed significant selling pressure were Coforge, PVR Inox, CarTrade Tech, Infosys, PTC Industries, IFCI and Piramal Pharma.

52-week low

Among the ones which hit their 52-week lows on NSE included HDFC Life, Pfizer, KEC International, Wipro, HDFC Bank, Bikaji Foods International and HUL.

Sentiment meter favours bears

Out of the 3,676 stocks that traded on the NSE on September 9, Wednesday, 1,484 stocks witnessed advances, 2,092 stocks saw declines while 100 stocks remained unchanged.

(Disclosure: "This article has been written by Debaroti Adhikary, who is not a SEBI-registered Research Analyst or an Investment Adviser. Debaroti Adhikary and her ‘relative(s)’ (as defined under Section 2(77) of the Companies Act, 2013) do not hold any financial interest in the companies mentioned in this article as of the date of publication. The views/recommendations mentioned in this article, wherever applicable, are those of the respective SEBI-registered Research Analyst/brokerage and have been reproduced/reported with due attribution. They should not be construed as the views or recommendations of The EconomicTimes Digital or the journalist. Readers are advised to consider the original research report and make their investment decisions based on their own assessment.")