Back within the range is where we are now, with the Nifty having rebuffed the offer to go lower. Everyone expected a better outing than it was but for now, I suppose, bulls will be happy to take what they get. Tomorrow is holiday and it is also the deadline for the tariff stuff. Maybe market will want to see that off before setting off any which way. So, today could be yet another day of dullness.

Powell-speak last week charged up the US markets big time and over the weekend there were big expectations of a ruboff here as well. However, the Gift Nifty seems to be pretty sedate towards the open. Nevertheless, an uptick today would rescue us from the threat of declines held out on Friday. But know that this can only pull us back into consolidation zone once again. Which will bring us back to looking at the same levels for a breakout- 24850 and 25250. If the market can take out this zone then we may have a game on our hands, particularly to the upside. Option traders are aligned along these borders and keep flipping up and down, as is their wont. Net result is that the stock specific nature of the market is likely to continue. Given the positive feeds from the US, we can choose to be buyers in the stocks and indices if there were to be pullbacks into intra day support zones. Prefer the Nifty compared to the Bank Nifty.

A quiet weekly expiry leaves the PCR at 1.00 levels so option traders are evenly placed and hence no bias exists for direction among them. Some indication will arrive as we get into the last week for August, starting today. But Put OI moving to 25000 is hinting that supports have moved up during the week and hence one can possibly state that the bias has shifted slightly to the upside over the week. NF has reached the down Gann angle for resistance as of yesterday and there is resistance till 25250 areas if rise attempts continue. However, lacking inputs by way of news may hinder that task. At the same time there isn’t anything for it to go lower either and hence the built up Put position along with the general sentiment may protect the 24900-25000 areas. Hence, more ranging, with stock specific moves. On Neotrader, I find 35/50 Nifty stocks with high Bull scores compared to only 13 for Bear scores. Also, there are only 8/50 stocks with bearish CS Rank1 . Hence the data is still pointing towards a bullish bias. Therefore this still remains a buy-on-dip market for now for the day traders.