Stocks to buy: Raja Venkatraman recommends three stocks for today — 17 January

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Indian benchmark indices Nifty and Sensex sustained their upward momentum for a third consecutive session on 16 January, driven by robust gains in metal, energy, and public sector bank stocks. This positive trend followed the softer-than-expected US inflation data for December, boosting hopes for additional interest rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve in 2025.

Traders and investors are now focused on earnings reports from Reliance Industries, Infosys, and Axis Bank, which are expected to guide market direction. While there is a brief sign of optimism, it is always advisable to be cautious as a "sell-on-rise" approach is still not out of the way, given ongoing uncertainties and weak fundamentals. Also Read: Analysts love these four stocks in this struggling sector It was difficukt to retain the bullish sentiment and the inability of a rebound has stressed everyone.

As the week began to unfold, the lower levels were held with some confidence as put writers indicated that the recovery is now possible. However, we must note that the trends are clearly not stablem inducing large scale volatility. The overall bias has now shifted to a rangebound situation while selling pressure at higher levels persists.

The resistance zones around 23900 will remain a stumbling block. With Bank Nifty unable to stabilise, more trigger is required as 52000 remains a hurdle. We had mentioned yesterday about the heavy call writing at 23300.

This has now become the base for the trends going ahead into the last trading day of the week. The max pain is at 23300 that would now be the target area as we attempt to trade in this volatile market scenario. The put call ratio (PCR) has moved above 1 in Nifty, highlighting