Sensex trades flat, Nifty near 23,450 as oil prices top $100 a barrel. What’s ahead?

Indian benchmark indices opened mixed on Thursday after several sessions of losses, with the Sensex trading lower and the Nifty edging marginally higher.

Sensex lost 22 points to 74,742 while Nifty 50 gained 15 points to 24,447 on Thursday. Broader markets remained mixed, with Nifty Midcap 100 in the red and Nifty Smallcap 100 in the green.

M&M and Adani Ports shares dropped around 1% each, while Axis Bank, SBI and ITC shares gained nearly 1% each. Among the sectors, Nifty PSU Bank index gained around 1% while Nifty Auto fell over 0.5%.


The overall market breadth turned positive, with NSE seeing 1,607 advances against 1,056 declines, while 125 stocks remained unchanged.

What lies ahead for Dalal Street?

Even though India’s forex reserves are comfortable and the current account deficit is under control, if crude remains above $100 for an extended period of time, it will impact India’s GDP growth this year, with its fallout on corporate earnings too, said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Investments. According to him, the sectors that are likely to be impacted are energy-sensitive sectors like aviation, paints, adhesives, tyres and chemicals. In such an environment, defensives like FMCG and sectors with inelastic demand like pharmaceuticals and healthcare will remain resilient, he added.

“Growth sectors like digital platform companies continue to be on strong footing. Even though banking stocks, particularly the large private sector players, are technically weak, they are fundamentally strong. The risk-reward ratio in this segment favours reward, for long-term investors,” the analyst said.

Technical view on Nifty

Nifty’s recovery attempts in the last few days have turned out to be brief and have only served to add momentum to downsides, said Anand James, Chief Market Strategist at Geojit Investments. With 23,260-23,000 next line, upside marker slips to 23,520.

Meanwhile, VIX is still below 12, but is rising fast enough to potentially beat the highest volatility seen in August, he added.