Week Ahead....

The Sensex climbed 322 points during the week to finish at 79,724, and the Nifty 50 rose 124 points to 24,304, with buying interest in the banking, FMCG, pharma, metal, and oil & gas sector, while tech stocks were unloaded. The indices had lost 8 percent from their record high of September 27 before this rebound.

The broader markets outperformed the frontline indices, with the Nifty Midcap 100 and Smallcap 100 indices rising 2.2 and 5.3 percent, respectively. Both defended the previous week's lows due to strong buying interest as Dalal Street may be hoping for better earnings growth and increased government spending in the second half of FY25.

The first week of Samvat 2081 starting November 4 is expected to be super busy given the number of global events. The market is expected to be rangebound with focus on the US presidential elections, the FOMC meet, the Bank of England's interest rate decision, September quarter earnings, and FII mood.

Globally, all eyes will be on the US presidential elections scheduled to be held on November 5, as there has been a tight race between Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Donald Trump.

The world will also be watching the interest rate decision by the US Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) on November 7.

The Bank of England will also announce its interest rate decision on November 7.

Apart from earnings and economic data, the street will also focus on FII and DII activity, as foreign institutional investors remained net sellers in India throughout last month, but domestic institutional investors almost managed to offset that outflow.

FIIs net sold Rs 14,416 crore worth of shares last week, while DIIs net bought shares worth Rs 9,787 crore. In October, FIIs net offloaded stocks worth Rs 1.14 lakh crore, while DIIs pumped in Rs 1.07 lakh crore.

Technically Nifty 50 has been rangebound between 24,000-24,500 for more than a week after significant correction and ahead of key global events. The index formed a Doji sort of candlestick pattern on the weekly timeframe, indicating indecision among bulls and bears about the market trend, and defended previous week's low (around 24,000-24,100) for the first time after reporting lower lows for the previous four weeks.

Hence, if the index manages to sustain above the 24,000 mark, then it may break the consolidation range and climb above 24,500 — the immediate resistance — followed by 24,800-25,000. But breaching 24,000 can drag the index towards the August low of 23,900, and that can bring major selling pressure.

The weekly options data suggests that 24,800 is likely to be a resistance zone for the index, with support at 24,200-24,000.