NIFTY50, SENSEX today: Wall Street cues, FII activity, key things to know before markets open on March 25

The Indian equity benchmarks are set to open higher on Wednesday, March 25, as indicated by GIFT NIFTY futures. NIFTY futures at GIFT City in Ahmedabad surged 138 points to 23,066 amid positive cues from other Asian markets.

The Indian equity benchmarks ended sharply higher on Tuesday as investor sentiment turned positive after United States President Donald Trump said that United States will postpone “any and all” military strikes against Iranian power plants and infrastructures for a period of five days.

The SENSEX ended 1,372 points higher at 74,068 and NIFTY50 index advanced 400 points to close at 22,912.

Asian markets

Asian markets were trading sharply higher on Wednesday after crude oil prices fell below $100 per barrel in international markets giving s sigh of relief to market participants who were concerned that fears of spiralling inflation might hurt corporate earnings going ahead.

Japan's Nikkei surged 2.5%, Australia S&P/ASX 200 index climbed 1.94%, China's Shanghai Composite gained 1.13%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng advanced 0.85% and South Korea's KOSPI rose 2.29%.

Wall Street update

Overnight, US stocks ended lower on account of profit booking after staging a sharp up move in the previous session.

Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.18%, S&P 500 index declined 0.37% and tech heavy Nasdaq slipped 0.84%.

Iran war update

Crude oil update

Crude oil prices in the global market were trading lower under $95 per barrel during the early market hours on Wednesday amid US President Donald Trump’s claims of an ongoing diplomatic dialogue with Iran for a potential peace deal.

Oil prices have fallen across the global market after US President Donald Trump in a White House address on March 24 said that the federal government is in talks with Iran and the West Asian nation allegedly wants to “make a deal so badly.”

FII/DII activity

Foreign institutional investors sold shares worth ₹8,010 crore on Tuesday while domestic institutional investors bought shares worth ₹5,867 crore, data from the National Stock Exchange showed.

The FIIs have so far this month sold shares worth ₹1,05,029 crore compared with shares worth ₹22,615 bought by them in February, according to the data from National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL).

Stocks to watch

In a regulatory filing, USL said pursuant to the meeting of its Board of Directors, it has entered into definitive agreements for the sale of the 100% equity stake held in its wholly owned subsidiary Royal Challengers Sports Private Ltd (RCSPL) to a consortium comprising Aditya Birla Group (ABG), The Times of India Group (Times), Bolt Ventures (Bolt), and Blackstone’s perpetual private equity strategy, BXPE (Blackstone).

BNP Paribas, through its affiliate BNP Paribas Financial Markets, purchased 6,90,000 shares at an average price of ₹808.3 apiece, according to the block deal data on the BSE.

The memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed by Sarit Maheshwari, CEO of NGEL, an arm of NTPC, and Ashish Arora, CEO at Nxtra, an exchange filing said.

"The MoU aims to explore business opportunities of mutual interest towards development of renewable energy projects for the supply of renewable energy round-the-clock power to Nxtra Datacenters on pan-India basis for their captive consumption," it said.

With this development, the company said its annual melting capacity has scaled up to 4.2 million tonnes per annum (MTPA).

Jindal Stainless has a combined melt capacity of 3 MTPA at its plants in Hisar (Haryana) and Jajpur (Odisha). The company has commissioned the 1.2 MTPA stainless steel melt shop (SMS) in Indonesia under a joint venture.

Trade setup

On the hourly charts, the index maintained gains above the 20 EMA at 22,892, signalling sustained buying from lower levels. The momentum could remain intact if the index manages to close above the 20 EMA levels for the second consecutive session.

The index also formed a Doji candlestick pattern on the daily charts, suggesting indecision on the direction of the index. If positive global cues persist throughout the day, the index could close above 23,000, giving it a much-needed boost.

On the option data front, the 24,000 CE of 30th March expiry suggests the highest open interest, indicating a strong resistance on the upside for the coming monthly expiry. On the flipside, 23,000 PE holds the highest open interest, indicating a downside protection near these levels.