Week Ahead

The benchmark indices ended at record closing highs on a weekly basis, though the Nifty failed to hit 20,000 mark. The BSE Sensex rallied over 600 points to 66,684, and the Nifty50 surged 180 points to 19,745, while the Nifty Midcap 100 index gained 0.7 percent and Smallcap 100 index was up 1.8 percent.

Banking and financial services, energy, infra, oil and gas, and pharma stocks supported the market, whereas the selling in technology stocks limited the gains.

For the overall week, the market may see some consolidation ahead of the FOMC meeting outcome and will take cues from the ongoing earnings season, but the trend remains positive with support from banks and amid strong FII flow.

With the results season picking up pace, we expect a lot of stock-specific action that would give a direction to domestic equities in the coming week.

The biggest factor on the domestic front will continue to be the quarterly earnings of corporates as the flow of announcements will increase. Around 380 companies will release their quarterly numbers in the coming week, including big names like Larsen & Toubro, Tata Motors, Tata Steel, Axis Bank, Bajaj Finance, Asian Paints, Dr Reddy's Laboratories, Bajaj Auto, HDFC Asset Management Company, Cipla, Shree Cement, Tata Consumer Products, Tech Mahindra, ACC, Bajaj Finserv, Nestle India, and NTPC.

Technically Nifty formed a bull candle with long upper shadow on the weekly timeframe chart, which signal presence of stiff resistance at 20,000 mark. The immediate support of 10-day EMA is at 19,650 levels and important 20-day EMA support is at 19,422 levels.

As per Options data, 19,600-19,500 can be near term crucial support area for the Nifty, while 19,800-20,000 is expected to remain as critical resistance.