Slim chances of fresh triggers now

The market snapped its eight-day winning streak on Friday, with the Sensex shedding over 222 points to end at 38,164 as investors booked profits after Fitch Ratings cut India's growth forecast.

The NSE Nifty ended 64.15 points lower at 11,456.90. Among the Sensex pack, Tata Motors was the biggest loser down (2.47 per cent), followed by Reliance Industries (2.44 per cent), Maruti (1.84 per cent), SBI (1.76 per cent) and Bajaj Finance (1.23 per cent).

According to analysts, major indicators are currently in the overbought zone, a pullback is imminent to retest the recent breakout levels.

However, all brokerage houses are positive and are upgrading their target prices. But when the Nifty was around 10,000 in October 2018, the same brokerage houses were equally bearish.

This week, markets continued to show strength although with lower velocity. The rally wasn't with the same thrust and momentum as the previous week as certain sectoral pockets experienced minor profit booking.

The Nifty broke the resistance levels of 10,500 this week which was a strong barrier to cross.

Fed's pause in interest rates further reinstated that the pill of stimulus for growth in the economy is still active. The current consensus is building for markets to go higher and higher but it is fraught with risks. At the ground level nothing has changed but the perception of the people that BJP-coalition govt might come to power is driving markets higher.

FIIs have also pumped in net $4.5 billion in the past month which has boosted this rally.

Technical View
"Traders are riding on the re-election bandwagon of the ruling party, but election results are still two months away and the outcome is highly unpredictable. Hence, such risky bets must not be taken. Going into the next week, markets are likely to remain volatile as fresh triggers look weak going forward," Umesh Mehta, Head of Research, Samco Securities said.

Relentless buying from FIIs coupled with the stronger rupee are the main reason for India outperforming the most of the Asian peers.

The Nifty Mid-Cap and Small-Cap consolidated in the narrow range where the Mid-Cap fell while Small-Cap closed flat.

"From the derivative markets, we decipher long build up in the Nifty Futures', short covering in the Bank Nifty Futures', Put writing at 11300-11500 level and FIIs' buy-ing in the Index futures' segment. These cues indicate that one should remain optimistic for the coming March expiry week with the stop loss of 11300 levels," said VK Sharma, Head PCG & Capital Markets Strategy, HDFC Securities.

"The markets no doubt are in an overbought zone, but they can be over bought for a longer period of time than short sellers can be in business. The next logical resistance for the markets is at 11,760, the all-time high mark, the Nifty seen saw in August last," he said.

According to derivative analysts, the Index futures segment witnessed some long unwinding in both the Nifty as well as Bank Nifty. Meanwhile, 11600 call option added huge positions which in turn shifted the highest open interest concentration from 11500  to 11600 strike. "At present, the outstanding contracts in the Index futures are long heavy,” Sneha Seth derivatives analyst at Angel Broking said.