Ahead of Market: 10 things that will decide stock market action on Wednesday

Indian frontline indices Nifty and the BSE Sensex ended sharply lower on Tuesday dragged by a steep fall in IT, auto and bank stocks. Today's slide wiped out Rs 2.85 lakh crore of investor wealth for stocks listed on the BSE. While the 30-stock Sensex closed 1,069 points or 1.28% lower at 82,226, the broader Nifty index plunged 288 points or 1.5% to 25,425.

Meanwhile, the volatility gauge India VIX ended at 14.15, down 0.12% from the last closing.

Here's how analysts read the market pulse:

Rupak De, Senior Technical Analyst at LKP Securities highlighted significant long unwinding in Nifty as a result of market debacle. The index has slipped sharply below its 21EMA and is now finding support at 200DMA, he said.

"Going forward, the index is likely to remain within the 25,300–25,750 band; that is, it may oscillate within a 450-point range amid heightened volatility. The India VIX has remained elevated, which may keep investors on edge. However, as long as 25300 is not broken decisively, a meaningful bounce could happen. Therefore, long trades may be considered with a stop loss placed below 25,300," De added.

US markets

U.S. stock indexes edged higher on Tuesday, boosted by technology shares as investors weighed Anthropic's announcement of new AI tools as well as President Donald Trump's shifting stance on trade policy.

Artificial intelligence lab Anthropic announced 10 new ways ‌for business customers to ⁠plug ⁠in its technology to key areas of their work, weeks after its earlier releases stoked a selloff of traditional software stocks.

The S&P 500 software and services index climbed 0.5%, recovering some losses. It has plunged 23.5% so far this year as ⁠the sector ‌grapples with AI-disruption fears.

Advanced Micro Devices jumped 6.7% after the chipmaker said it had agreed to sell up to $60 billion worth of AI chips to Meta Platforms over five years.

European Markets

Major European indices were trading with cuts around 11:41 a.m. GMT (5:27 pm India time). Spain's IBEX was the top loser, declining 0.7% around this time while UK's FTSE 100 and Germany's DAX traded with minor declines up to 0.1%.

France’s CAC 40 and Stoxx 600 were flat though the bias was positive.

Tech View

Decoding the technical charts, Ajit Mishra, Senior Vice President - Research at Religare Broking said a decisive break below 25,400 zone could trigger the next leg of decline towards 25,245, which coincides with the 200 DEMA, followed by a major support area around 25,100. In his view, 25,400 is a crucial support level which was tested in today's trade.

"On the upside, the 25,600–25,800 zone is likely to act as an immediate hurdle in case of any recovery. Amid the prevailing volatility and weak global cues, participants are advised to remain selective, keep position sizes light and focus on relatively stronger pockets of the market," Mishra said.

Most active stocks in terms of turnover

Larsen & Toubro (L&T, Rs 869 crore), Infosys (Rs 207 crore), Eternal (HAL, Rs 182), State Bank of India (SBI, Rs 107 crore), Tata Consultancy Services (TCS, Rs 105 crore) and Natco Pharma (Rs 97 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: 2.73 crore), SpiceJet (Traded shares: 2.70 crore), IDFC First Bank (Traded shares: 1.79 crore), Ola Electric (Traded shares: 1.24 crore), Eternal (Traded shares: 71.42 lakh), Bank of Maharashtra (Traded shares: 54.51 lakh), and Morepen Laboratories (Traded shares: 49.32 lakh) were among the most actively traded stocks in volume terms on BSE.

Stocks showing buying interest

NTPC, Coal India, One Mobikwik, Natco Pharma, DEE Development Engineers, AVG Logistics and Utkarsh Small Finance Bank were among the stocks that witnessed strong buying interest from market participants.

52 Week high

Today, 91 stocks hit their 52 week highs while 357 stocks slipped to their 52-week lows. Among the ones which hit their 52 week highs included Acutaas Chemicals, Astral, Bajaj Consumer Care, Bank of India, Federal Bank, ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company, Jindal Steel and NTPC.

Stocks seeing selling pressure

Among the large cap names were Tech Mahindra, HCL Technologies and Eternal. Other stocks which witnessed significant selling pressure were TAC Infosec, Signatureglobal, Yatra Online, Cartrade Tech, VL E-Governance & IT Solutions, Le Travenues Technology and L&T Technology Services.

Sentiment meter favours bears

Heavyweights like HDFC Bank, L&T and Infosys dragged the markets the most as the breadth stayed negative in the overall markets. Out of the 4,367 stocks that traded on the BSE on February 24, Tuesday, 1,344 stocks witnessed advances, 2,889 saw declines while 134 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)