The Nifty Bank index closed 0.39 per cent up at 32743.05.

"The central bank bull market has ended and now we are having a central bank bear market. The central bank bear market ends when Jerome Powell comes and says now I am through with the hiking cycle and I am going to stop hiking or I am going to do quantitative easing,"

The fund house increased holding in the stock to 16 lakh shares in May from 6 lakh shares in April, a jump of 189 per cent. In value terms, the fund house held Rs 261 crore worth of Escorts Kubota shares compared with Rs 91 crore at the end of April, data compiled by ICICIdirect suggests.

"On the flip side, the Nifty50 is exactly placed at the previous breakout point of May 2021, which is around 15,400 – 15,300. The ‘RSI-Smoothened’ oscillator on the daily chart is showing a ‘Positive Divergence’ i.e. lower lows in recent prices and higher lows in the oscillator. This condition generally happens at the fag end of any downtrend. Hence, looking at the charts, we are clearly in two minds at this juncture," he said.

“This is a great market for working hard and picking a portfolio of 10-15-20-25 stocks. From now until the next 12 months, there are going to be at least 20-25 good names that will be up between 25% to 100% from the point of this interview. I would be very surprised if we do not get that kind of bottom-up stock picking opportunities.”

A strong dollar overseas and higher crude prices also kept the domestic unit under pressure, forex dealers said.At the interbank forex market, the rupee opened strong at 78.03 against the greenback and witnessed an intra-day high of 78.02 and a low of 78.09.

The Nifty Pharma index closed 2.18 per cent down at 11803.95.

“I will keep pharma and IT on radar. IT is looking more promising than pharma so on a ranking scale, IT first and then pharma next but pharma needs to confirm from a market perspective on the price charts that it is reversing from there. Nifty Smallcap is nearing support at about 8,200. If it tries to hold then we can explore possibilities out there but that will be just a trading play and not an investment play.”

The Nifty Realty index was trading 1.06 per cent down at 373.7.

“ I am not saying that markets will go up from here or they cannot correct more but I feel that over time, as strong growing businesses are available at reasonable valuations, the risk reward is looking better than what it was looking a few quarters back.”