Heavyweight stocks pull Nifty, Sensex marginally up; analysts expect rangebound trade

Equity benchmarks the Sensex and the Nifty erased opening losses to trade marginally higher on February 27, supported by gains in heavyweight stocks. The markets will continue to be rangebound in the next few sessions in the absence of immediate triggers, analysts said.

The Sensex and the Nifty were flat-to-positive at 72,793 and 22,123, respectively on February 27 morning deals. Fear gauge India VIX jumped over 2 percent to trade above 15.

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Sacchitanand Uttekar, Vice President of Research at TradeBulls Securities, said positive bias would remain intact as long as Nifty defends the 22,000-mark.

"The Nifty is likely to remain rangebound this week, with 21,990 acting as a key support. As long as Nifty stays above 21,990, it may evolve to do one last swing to 22,400-500 levels," he told Moneycontrol.

Vaishali Parekh, Vice President - Technical Research at Prabhudas Lilladher said that the overall bias is strong and some revival is expected. "Nifty would once again regain strength to carry on the upward move for next targets of 22,400 and 22,800 levels. The support for the day is seen at 22,000, while resistance is seen at 22,250," she added.

Meanwhile, broader markets outperformed benchmarks within the first hour of trade. The Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 indices gained up to 0.5 percent.

Sectorally, Nifty Realty was the top performer in the morning trade as it gained 1 percent led by Sobha, Godrej Properties, Oberoi Realty, and DLF. On the flipside, Bank Nifty index was the sole sectoral loser as it declined 0.1 percent weighed by weakness in HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, and ICICI Bank shares.

Global markets mixed

Overnight, US markets fell after AI-fuelled rally fizzled out. Dow Jones, the S&P 500, and tech-heavy NASDAQ Composite indices fell up to 0.3 percent as market rally took a breather.

Asia-Pacific markets also turned lower this morning, with Hong Kong stocks leading the drop and Japan's Nikkei 225 also surrendered gains.

Japan's Nikkei 225 slipped 0.2 percent, South Korea's Kospi inched 0.3 percent lower, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was down 0.9 percent.

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