Dow Jones futures fall following steep Wall Street sell-off, NFP data awaited

The Indian stock market continued its upward trend this week, with Sensex and Nifty indices recording gains of 0.5% even as global markets suffered losses following US President Donald Trump's defeat in the midterm elections. On Friday, both the benchmark indices surged, with Sensex climbing over 500 points and Nifty surpassing 24,650.

Over the past five days, the indices have risen by 7%. Mahindra & Mahindra shares led the gains on Sensex, while Titan, Infosys, HCL Tech, TCS, and Bharti Airtel rose by around 2% each. Despite the overall rally, Asian Paints, Bajaj Finance, and Power Grid shares declined over 2% each. While broader markets experienced declines, the overall market breadth turned negative, with 2,236 stocks falling and 824 advancing, leaving 94 unchanged.

Sectors like Nifty Metal saw significant losses, while Nifty IT gained 1.5%. India VIX, a volatility index, surged nearly 7% to near 17. V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Investments, believes that the recent decline in US markets, primarily due to concerns over data center spending, will have little impact on India.

He noted that Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) have been buying equities worth Rs 35,781 crores in the last five trading days, which is expected to sustain market resilience despite diabolical selling by Domestic Institutional Investors (DIIs). The rally is driven by strong earnings growth and attractively valued large-cap stocks, particularly in finance, technology, and automotive sectors.

Technical analysis suggests that Nifty staying below 24,800 weakens the overall market, with support at 24,300. If Nifty recovers and reaches 24,700, it could target 25,000.