Nifty stocks on uptrend but technicals point to a pause in the rally

The equity rally in India has been so broad that almost every stock in the benchmark is in a technical uptrend. But if history offers a guide, that could point to an upcoming pause.

A whopping 98% of stocks in India’s NSE Nifty 50 Index were trading above their 200-day moving average this week, a level used by technical analysts to determine whether a stock is in an uptrend. The last time India posted such an extreme reading was in July 2014, which was followed by a correction in September that lasted longer than a month.

India's Nifty 50 Index has 98% of stocks trading above 200-day moving average.

Extended breadth is not the only signal that India’s equity rebound may have run too far too fast. The Nifty’s 11% gain in November pushed it more than two standard deviations above its 50-day moving average, and the gauge’s 14-day relative strength index is also in so-called overbought territory.

“There could be a short-term correction in the Nifty, but a milder one,” said Sameer Kalra, a strategist at Mumbai-based Target Investing. “Stocks which were outperforming have stabilized for a while now.”

Kalra said investors should turn their focus to medium-sized companies instead of the larger stocks found in the Nifty 50.

“I think for the next couple of weeks at least, until the month end, midcaps might outperform the Nifty by a huge margin,” he said. “If the catchup rally is to be broad-based, midcaps are where the laggards are the highest in number.”

Still, even if technical indicators look overextended, the country’s fundamentals seem to be on track.

A gauge of India’s recovery created by Jefferies Financial Group Inc. climbed again in November, a move seen as “encouraging” given the decline in government expenditure, according to a note Tuesday. Analysts Mahesh Nandurkar and Abhinav Sinha said the rebound looks to be on track and maintained their overweight position on banks and property stocks.