What is your view on the stock markets for the 24 March, Wednesday? Do you now see the Sensex holding above 50,000 levels?

You are right in the sense that it does seem like a long time but on Tuesday Sensex finally closed above the 50,000 mark. This happened after struggling to breach the level for some time. Although, Tuesday, marked the third consecutive day of bounce from lower levels, it may still be a tad early to judge if the Sensex can sustain over the 50,000 levels.

However, some of the high frequency indicators of the market continue to remain positive. On Tuesday, the VIX remained under 21 and the advance to decline ratio or the A/D ratio was favourable at 28:22 for Nifty. The rally was largely driven by banking and cement stocks. However, rising COVID cases remain a concern, although inflation could be finally tapering.

On Tuesday, the FPI action was negative with net selling of Rs.108 crore even as domestic institutions sold Rs.530 crore of equities. However, the figure is not too significant. FPI flows have been rather tepid as the risk-on money has been on the side lines and that could only come back after global yields and the global Coronavirus scene stabilizes.

Global markets are feeling the heat of rising COVID cases. It did put pressure as the Dow and the NASDAQ closed 1% lower on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Europe is the epicentre and it came under pressure after Angela Merkel announced a gradual intensification of restrictions. SGX Nifty is 20 bps lower in early trades on 24 March but lockdown fears are quite high.

The Sensex did give a brief glimmer of hope on Tuesday, bouncing for the third day in succession and closing above 50,000. But both indices will have to give positive closures and that looks unlikely till risk-on returns to markets. The worst maybe over for markets but the bounce back may still be some time away.