Short-term trend remains positive

The market indices ended flat after remaining range bound throughout the trading session on Wednesday.

While the Sensex ended 23.28 points higher at 38386.75, the Nifty closed in the red, down 11.40 points at 11521. About 1104 shares have advanced, 1532 shares declined on BSE.

Hindalco, Infosys, Indiabulls Housing, Dr Reddy's Labs and Wipro were major gainers, HPCL, Zee Entertainment, BPCL, NTPC and ONGC were major losers.

Barrring IT, banking and pharma all other sectoral indices ended in red led by metal, energy, auto, FMCG and infra.

Analysts said the momentum continues to be positive though the indices may remain range bound.

Technical View

"The Nifty closed in the negative territory in the last trading session on F&O expiry day. From here on, 11600 is acting as a very stiff resistance and above those levels only we can see some further upside till 11700-11800 levels else there will be some consolidation within this range of 11430-111600 levels," said Jay Thakkar, Head Technical and Derivatives Research - AVP Equity Research, Anand Rathi Shares and Stock Brokers.

According to analysts, the Sensex has been forming higher tops and higher bottoms on the hourly charts and till this chain continues the short term trend remains positive, however, the short term indicators are trading in an overbought region.

"Some consolidation is expected in the near term before an attempt is made to conquer 11800/ 12200 on the higher side for Nifty. Support on the downside is seen at 11100-11200 levels. Buying on dips is advisable as we remain in a structural uptrend," said Sahaj Agrawal, AVP - Derivatives, Kotak Securities.

Analysts said the near term uptrend of the Nifty is intact and the next short term upside resistance to be watched at 11,605 levels.

"We continue to remain upbeat on the market & advice against adopting a contrarian approach. As far as levels are concerned, 11500 followed by 11451 would now be seen as immediate supports; whereas on the upside, 11556 and 11600 are the next levels to watch out for," Sameet Chavan Chief Analyst-Technical and Derivatives, Angel Broking said.

According to derivative analysts, the open interest activity for both the Nifty as well as the Bank Nifty was muted on Wednesday. As far as the Nifty options activities are concerned, 11500-11800 call options added good amount of fresh positions. Now, considering the declining INDIAVIX we believe these is writing taking place. On the flip side, we saw decent build-up in 11400-11500 put options.

"Since the beginning of March series, we have been witnessing huge amount of long formation and now it seems we are long heavy. However, stronger hands continued pouring liquidity in equities and have been adding good amount of longs in the Index future segment. At present, their 'Long Short Ratio' stands at 63 per cent after quite some time. But, looking at the quantum of outstanding trades in the system we won't be comfortable in initiating fresh longs now and would in fact, advise traders to keep booking profit at higher levels," said Sneha Seth Derivatives Analyst, Angel Broking.