Do you see the Nifty taking support on 17-December after the bounce back on Thursday?

If you look at the trade on Thursday, Nifty closed 27 points higher, but the indices actually failed to hold to higher gains of the morning. It is clear that the pressure on the market is quite intense. Metals and pharma continued to remain under pressure on Thursday but the advance decline ratio showed a positive trend, albeit marginal, at 28:22.

The day belonged to the two digital stocks on Thursday. Paytm and Nykaa rallied sharply from lower levels on news reports that they may be classified as large cap stocks. That has the potential to trigger a good deal of institutional flows in these stocks. Nykaa was deeply in the negative in the morning but bounced back to positive territory.

Foreign investors were net sellers in equities to the tune of Rs.1,469 crore while domestic funds bought Rs.1,533 crore on Thursday. One can see year-end boredom setting in. In terms of global markets, Dow was flat but Amazon and Apple led the NASDAQ down by 2.5%. European markets gained more than 1.3% across the board. However, the SGX Nifty is trading nearly 15 bps lower in early trades on Friday.

Regarding your question on the Nifty taking support, it is still too early. Firstly, this is a Friday so some weekend caution is bound to rub-off on the markets. Secondly, the undertone is still weak because the hawkishness of the Fed has led to concerns that the RBI may also front-end rate hikes. The markets are cautious and expect selling pressure higher.