Stock market today: Nifty 50 ends flat after almost touching 25k; midcaps, smallcaps outperform

Stock market today: After hitting fresh record highs, Indian stock market benchmarks, the Nifty 50 and the Sensex, closed flat on Monday, July 29, due to profit booking at higher levels as investors continued their strategy of buying cheap and selling at higher prices keeping elevated valuation in mind.

The Nifty 50 almost touched the coveted 25,000 mark as the index hit a fresh record high of 24,999.75 during the session. The 30-share pack Sensex also hit a fresh all-time high of 81,908.43 in intraday trade.

Eventually, the Nifty 50 closed just 1 point higher at 24,836.10, while the Sensex closed 23 points higher at 81,355.84.

Shares of Larsen and Toubro, Reliance Industries, and Mahindra and Mahindra contributed the most to the gains in the Nifty 50 index. On the other hand, shares of HDFC Bank, Bharti Airtel and ITC ended as the top drags on the index.

“While benchmark indices hit fresh intra-day lifetime highs and the Nifty almost touched the 25k mark, most of the gains were lost, and markets ended off their highs amid profit-taking in IT and telecom stocks. Going ahead, global market direction and corporate earnings will dictate the trend," said Prashanth Tapse, Senior vice president (Research) at Mehta Equities.

Global peers were largely positive while investors await the policy meeting outcomes of the UD Federal Reserve, Bank of England (BoE), and Bank of Japan (BoJ) this week.

"An ease in the US personal consumption expenditure to 2.5% and the subsequent drop in the US 10-year yield have fuelled optimism that the Fed might cut rates in September, leading to a global rally. However, profit-booking was triggered in the domestic market given trading in the overbought territory and closed flat," Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services, observed.

The US Fed is expected to keep interest rates steady on Wednesday, July 31, but it may hint at a cut at its next policy meeting in September, considering easy inflation and a resilient economy.

BoJ, on the other hand, may increase rates by 10 basis points to 0.2 per cent on Wednesday. The BoE may go for a 25 bps rate cut on Thursday, August 1.

"Policy meeting is scheduled for the Fed, BOJ and BOE this week, and investors are closely monitoring the developments. It is anticipated that the BOE may implement a 25-bps rate cut in response to easing inflation," said Nair.

While the benchmarks ended flat, the mid and small-cap segments continued witnessing strong gains. The BSE Midcap index rose 0.80 per cent, while the Smallcap index jumped 1.17 per cent.

Thanks to the gains in the second-rung indices, the overall market capitalisation of the firms listed on the BSE rose to nearly ₹460 lakh crore from nearly ₹457 lakh crore in the previous session, making investors richer by nearly ₹3 lakh crore in a single session.

As many as 404 stocks, including Infosys, NTPC, Sun Pharma, Tata Motors, TCS and Tech Mahindra, hit their fresh 52-week highs in intraday trade on BSE.

25 stocks ended in the green and the same number of stocks ended in the red in the Nifty 50 index.

Shares of Divi's Labs (up 2.93 per cent), BPCL (up 2.92 per cent) and Larsen and Toubro (up 2.58 per cent) closed as the top gainers in the Nifty 50 index.

On the flip side, shares of Bharti Airtel (down 2.08 per cent), Titan (down 1.95 per cent) and Cipla (down 1.40 per cent) ended as the top losers in the index.

Most sectoral indices ended with gains. Nifty PSU Bank rose 2.25 per cent, followed by the Media (up 1.80 per cent) index.

Nifty Realty (up 1.43 per cent) and Oil and Gas (up 1.04 per cent) also clocked strong gains.

Nifty Bank index ended 0.22 per cent higher, while the Private Bank index climbed 0.28 per cent.

The market today found it difficult to hold gains. Shrikant Chouhan, the head of equity research at Kotak Securities, pointed out that the market opened on a positive note, but due to profit booking at higher levels, it failed to sustain above 24,950/81,750 levels.

"From the day's highest level, the market shed over 200 /750 points. However, the short-term market texture is still on the long side. We are of the view that the intraday market texture is non-directional; hence, buying on intraday correction and selling on rallies would be the ideal strategy for day traders," said Chouhan.

"For traders now, 24,700-24,650/81,000-80,800 would be the key support areas while 24,950 -25,000/81,750-82,000 would act as a crucial resistance areas for the bulls. On the flip side, below 24,650/80,800, the uptrend would be vulnerable," said Chouhan.

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