Significant gap-up open was seen in the Indian benchmarks today. The Nifty and the Sensex spot indices opened the session with a gain of over 3 per cent each but was unable to rally further. Both the indices have been moderating from the respective peaks.

One of the reasons for the positive sentiment was the cues from the Asian markets. The major Asian indices are trading higher today. For instance, the Nikkei has gained nearly 3 per cent; the Hang Seng and the Shanghai composite index are up by 2 per cent and 0.8 per cent, respectively.

The market breadth of the Nifty 50 is indicating a bullish bias as 39 out of the 50 stocks are in the green so far. Also, all the mid-cap and small-cap indices have gained today. Among the sectoral indices, the Nifty realty index is the top performer, up by 4.9 per cent whereas the Nifty pharma index is the top loser, down by 0.8 per cent. Notably, the volatility has dropped by over 4 per cent today, as indicated by India VIX- the volatility index.

Following a higher opening in the Nifty spot index, the April futures contract of the Nifty began the session at 9,345 versus yesterday’s close of 9,035. After making an intraday high of 9,350 the contract started to decline. It registered the day’s low at 9,120 and currently trading around 9,140. Thus, the futures could not sustain above the critical level of 9,250 and so long as the contract trades below this level, it can be approached with a bearish bias. So, for intraday, traders can short the contract on rallies with stop-loss at 9,250.

Strategy: Short on rallies with stop-loss at 9,250

Supports : 9,100 and 9,070

Resistances : 9,200 and 9,250