The headline 50-stock Nifty 50 index has failed to decisively close past the 25,150-mark, yet again as the fight between bulls and bears remained tight in the trade on June 11. Since breaching the 25,000 mark on May 15, the benchmark index has largely moved within a narrow 1,000-point band. In the last 19 trading sessions, it has repeatedly failed to decisively close past or stay above 25,100 despite multiple intraday attempts.
A similar story panned out in today’s session as the index failed to sustain momentum and is now set to close flat, marking another session of sideways movement. This was after the Nifty opened on a positive note, tracing global cues and scaled a fresh 2025 high of over 25,200. However, profit booking soon trickled in at higher levels as the Nifty 50 index pared down its early gains and closed today’s session on a muted note at 25,141.40 points, up 0.2% from its previous close.
While market participants are eagerly waiting to see some uptick in the market, experts cautioned that this sideway moves could persist amid ongoing market challenges.
The Nifty 50 index did manage to end above the 25,000-mark in the last four trading sessions, but it was the first such instance in around a month. Barring these four sessions, the headline index has struggled to stage a close above the crucial psychological mark.
Shrikant Chouhan, head equity research at Kotak Securities, said that the market has shown a narrow range pattern on the technical chart over the past two days. “…as long as the market trades between 25,000 and 25,200, range-bound conditions are likely to persist,” Chouhan said in a note.
If the headline index manages to break past above 25,200 points, market could get pushed up to 25,400 and 25,500- levels, he said. Earlier today VK Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist of Geojit Investments, said that if Nifty moves past 25,100-level, sustained buying could come as a product of positive news related to US-China trade deal.
However, investors seem to believe otherwise as even some positive triggers around the US-China trade deal failed to boost the market enough to be able to sustain intraday gains.
On the downside though, if the level falls below 25,000, selling pressure is expected to increase and the market could retest 24,850-24,775 level, Chouhan said.
Vijayakumar added that while abundant liquidity may support mild upward moves, any meaningful rally will require stronger earnings growth. And as there are no signs of strong recovery in earnings, any short-term rally in the market is expected to get capped.
So far, corporate earnings have remained muted. According to Motilal Oswal, Nifty 50 companies posted a fourth consecutive quarter of single-digit net profit growth, though the actual growth beat its 2% forecast. As many as 13 sectors exceeded expectations in the March quarter earnings, implying a widespread out-performance, Motilal Oswal had said.
On the other hand, HSBC Global Research said in a report that the March quarter corporate earnings did saw an improvement after four quarters of weak growth, but a sustained recovery in earnings growth is still a few quarters away. Consensus has made sharp cuts in full-year (2025) growth estimates, mainly due to weaker urban consumption, muted private capex, and uncertainties around growth in IT sector amid policy uncertainties in the US, the reports said.
