Mid-day trade (March 19, 20215): Nifty breaches 22,900 levels; midcaps shine

Buoyed by improved global cues, Indian equities after a subdued start gained heavily by the mid-day trade as broader markets and broad-based buying sentiment lifted overall mood on D-Street. Nifty at around 2 pm was up 0.31 per cent or 70.7 points at 22,905, while the BSE's 30-share Sensex index was up 142 points or 0.19 per cent at 75,443.39.

Meanwhile, midcaps and smallcaps continued to gain exorbitantly for the third consecutive session, with gains of over 2 per cent each.

Sectorally, only IT and FMCG stocks witnessed selling pressure, while all other sectoral gauges were up sharply by as much as 2.4 per cent, with the realty index leading the gains, followed by PSU Bank and Consumer Durable stocks.

Primarily, while heavyweights like HDFC Bank, Reliance Industries, L&T, SBI and Shriram Finance led the gains, top drags on the index have been Infosys, HCL Technologies, ITC, TCS and Kotak Mahindra Bank among others.

From the Nifty50 pack, top gainers at the last count were Shriram Finance, HDFC Life, Power Grid Corporation, Tata Steel and Apollo Hospitals, while laggards have been Tech Mahindra, TCS, Infosys, HCL Technologies and ITC.

Technicals

Anand James, Chief Market Strategist, Geojit Financial Services on the Nifty outlook said, " While it took 10 trading sessions to swing higher from the lower Bollinger band and break above the middle band, we expect the travel to the upper band to unfold in much less time. This should also suggest that the 23000 region which was expected to spark a stop and reverse move, may give away. Ideally, a full retracement to the Feb peak should unfold, setting us up with 23807 as the optimistic target, with intermediate resistance spotted in the 23460-500 vicinity."

Alternatively, inability to close above 22730 today after early positivity, could signal loss in momentum, but an outright reversal is less favoured, he added.

European markets

European stocks traded lower in Wednesday's session as investors reacted to a historic policy change in Germany and waited for monetary policy updates.