Markets remained flat for the last five trading sessions

Mumbai: Despite the ongoing boom in America, the markets have remained sluggish for the last five trading days.“Markers are struggling to break the 21,000-mark on Nifty and we are seeing some consolidation,” said Jaikrishna Gandhi, head of business development, institutional equities, at Emkay Global Financial Services.

There has been some change in the broader market as banks have shown some interest in the IT sector and continued selling. On the other hand, oil prices have fallen sharply due to demand fears and lack of Saudi production cuts and are now around $70 per barrel.

He said the CPI numbers in both India and the US were in line with expectations as India saw a rise in CPI due to higher food prices and a slowdown in the US due to slowing economic growth.

“Overall, we believe broader markets will remain strong, as seen by FIIs buying $2.5 billion of MTD in November as well as $2.3 billion of MTD. State elections gave a big boost to the markets ahead of the general elections. In the near term, as we head towards the end of the year, we should expect some consolidation around the current levels,” he said.

Wednesday was the fourth day of strengthening in the market. Shirsham Gupta, director and senior technical analyst at Rupees, said Nifty is taking some time to recover after the recent state election results.

“We expect more of the same due to Nifty options expiry on Thursday. The real action may start on Friday, but as the holiday season approaches and FIIs take time off, things may slow down.”

On the technical side of things, Nifty is facing resistance around 21,000 levels. He said that Nifty will have to cross this level for the market to move upwards.