Domestic equities closed marginally in the red on Tuesday as weakness in financial and consumer shares outweighed gains in the IT pack, which emerged as the key support for the market. The Nifty 50 slipped 31.95 points, or 0.14%, to finish at 23,618, while the BSE Sensex declined 114.19 points, or 0.15%, to settle at 75,200.85. Meanwhile, the volatility gauge India VIX ended at 18.68, down by 4.86% from the last closing.
Here's how analysts read the market pulse:
Rupak De, Senior Technical Analyst at LKP Securities said overall sentiment is likely to remain tilted in favour of the bears in the short term. "The 23,800 zone continues to act as a crucial resistance level, and unless the index decisively moves above it, sellers may regain control at any point. On the downside, immediate support is placed at 23400, below which selling pressure could intensify further. On the upside, the index faced resistance near the 20 EMA, which triggered profit booking in the latter half of the session. The hourly RSI remains in a bearish crossover and continues to trend lower, indicating weakening momentum," De said.
US markets
Wall Street's main indexes fell on Tuesday, pressured by technology and consumer discretionary stocks, as mounting inflation concerns sent the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield to its highest level in more than a year.
An equities rally halted on Friday after a selloff in global bond markets evoked fears of major central banks tightening monetary policy, with the Middle East conflict pushing oil prices higher and stoking inflation concerns.
Brent crude futures dipped 1.1%, but were still above $110 a barrel after U.S. President Donald Trump said on social media on Monday that he had held off on a planned military strike against Iran, scheduled for Tuesday, while negotiations continued.
The 10-year Treasury yield surged after an earlier dip. It hit the highest level since January 2025 at 4.6653%.
European Markets
European shares ended slightly higher on Tuesday as investors welcomed news that the U.S. had paused an attack on Iran and weighed the chances of an imminent peace deal at a time when inflation concerns globally kept bond yields elevated.
European semiconductors gave up some recent gains as Infineon lost over 2.5% and ASMI fell over 1%. On the other hand, software stocks SAP and Dassault Systèmes gained 6% and 2.8%, respectively. Lagercrantz rose 8.2% after the Swedish firm posted better-than-expected fourth quarter earnings.
Tech View
Decoding the charts, Bajaj Broking said the index has formed a small bearish candle with a long upper shadow signaling selling pressure at higher levels around the recent breakdown area of 23,800-23,900. Going ahead, failure to move above the recent breakdown area of 23,800-23,900, will keep the bias corrective and the index will consolidate with downward bias in the range of 23,200-23,900, the brokerage said. "Indexes need to start forming higher high and higher low on a sustained basis in the daily chart and a move above the breakdown area of 23,800-23,900 to signal a pause in the recent downtrend. Nifty has key support at 23,200-23,000 levels being the confluence of the lower band of the 8th April bullish gap area and the 61.8% retracement of the previous pullback (22,182-24,601). The daily 14 periods RSI is facing resistance near its nine periods average highlighting corrective bias," this brokerage said.
Most active stocks in terms of turnover
GAIL (Rs 300 crore), Apollo Hospitals Enterprise (Rs 252 crore), Reliance Industries (RIL, Rs 170 crore), Vodafone Idea (Rs 145 crore), Infosys (Rs 117 crore), GE Shipping (Rs 111 crore) and MTAR Technologies (Rs 106 crore) were among the most active stocks on BSE in value terms. Higher activity in a counter in value terms can help identify the counters with highest trading turnovers in the day.
Most active stocks in volume terms
Vodafone Idea (Traded shares: 10.87 crore), GAIL (Traded shares: 1.90 crore), Ola Electric (Traded shares: 1.13 crore), Apollo Hospitals (Traded shares: 74.15 lakh), YES Bank (Traded shares: 65.58 lakh), Indraprastha Gas (IGL, Traded shares: 57.82 lakh)and JP Power (Traded shares: 49.20 crore) and were among the most actively traded stocks in volume terms on BSE.
Stocks showing buying interest
Dhanuka Agritech, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation, Coforge, Vodafone, Stallion India Fluorochemicals, Dredging Corporation of India and Rishabh Instruments were among the stocks that witnessed strong buying interest from market participants.
52-week high
Today, 91 stocks hit their 52 week highs while 33 stocks slipped to their 52-week lows. Among the ones which hit their 52 week highs included Acutaas Chemicals, Ajanta Pharma, Focus Business Solution, Gland Pharma, Vodafone Idea, Ipca Laboratories and Jetmall Spices and Masala.
Stocks seeing selling pressure
Among the large cap names were Kotak Mahindra Bank, Titan Company and UltraTech Cement Company. Other stocks which witnessed significant selling pressure were Jain Resource Recycling, United Foodbrands, Astral, Senores Pharmaceuticals, Neogen Chemicals, UCAL and Synergy Green Industries.
Sentiment meter favours bears
While Sensex settled with minor declines dragged mainly by HDFC Bank, Reliance Industries (RIL) and Kotak Bank, the broader markets breadth stayed positive. Out of the 4,352 stocks that traded on the BSE on May 19, Tuesday, 2,544 stocks witnessed advances, 1,645 saw declines while 163 stocks remained unchanged.
(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of Economic Times)
