Nifty added 0.23% today, its second straight up session after Monday's 1.19% drop, and the advance-decline ratio at 1.92 is the strongest one-day breadth reading of the past month. But scratch beneath that and the Stage-2 cohort - the stocks the screener actually wants you to be in - just fell to 32.2% of the universe, its lowest share in 30 sessions. A one-day breadth spike sitting on top of a shrinking advancing cohort is not confirmation. It is a bounce inside a weak tape.
The bounce is real, the damage isn't fixed
Two up days do not undo three weeks of deterioration. Just 27.9% of stocks sit above their 20-day average and 30.7% above their 50-day - which means over two-thirds of the market is still below both short-term averages even after today's move. Fifty-two-week lows have outnumbered highs for five straight sessions, and today's net reading of -127 (99 highs against 226 lows) is only modestly better than Tuesday's -201, itself the worst print of the last month. The five-day flow of stocks moving up the stage ladder has been negative for sixteen sessions running - more names are still slipping from Stage 2 into Stage 3 than the other way round. Today's AD ratio swing, from Monday's panic low of 0.18 to today's high of 1.92, says more about how oversold Monday left the tape than about a change in trend.
Energy is quietly building while the index chops
Energy is the one sector where Stage-2 participation is rising, not falling - its share is up nearly 20 points over the past month versus broad-based declines everywhere else, including double-digit drops in Utilities, Financials and Industrials. Within it, Oil & Gas Equipment & Services and Exploration & Production both carry unusually high and rising Stage-2 shares. It is a narrow pocket of strength in a market where every other sector's advancing cohort is contracting, and worth watching rather than chasing given the small industry sizes involved.
Where the setups sit
Alembic and DIC India lead the early-stage list - names still close to their 50-day average rather than extended. The highest scores on the board, Raymond, Oriental Aromatics, Sakar Healthcare among them, are trends that have already run hard; they show what has led, not what to buy fresh. With the regime stuck in transition for twelve sessions and median setup quality still soft, this is a tape for selectivity, not for chasing today's green candle.
| Stock | Sector | Setup | % 1D |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alembic Ltd | Health Care | 8.3 | +3.8% |
| DIC India Ltd | Materials | 7.9 | +3.0% |
| Godrej Agrovet Ltd | Consumer Staples | 7.9 | +1.0% |
| Suraksha Diagnostic Ltd | Health Care | 7.8 | +0.7% |
| Orient Bell Ltd | Industrials | 7.8 | +0.8% |
| Hindustan Oil Exploration Company Ltd | Energy | 7.8 | +0.3% |
| Supreme Petrochem Ltd | Materials | 7.6 | +1.8% |
| Pitti Engineering Ltd | Industrials | 7.5 | +2.7% |
| Sector | 1D | 1M | 3M | RS | Stage 2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Real Estate | +1.5% | -5.0% | +3.2% | 53 | 28% |
| Industrials | +1.4% | -4.2% | -2.1% | 67 | 27% |
| Health Care | +1.4% | +0.7% | +9.8% | 72 | 46% |
| Utilities | +0.9% | -3.9% | -10.1% | 57 | 15% |
| Materials | +0.7% | -3.0% | -2.0% | 64 | 36% |
| Consumer Discretionary | +0.6% | -3.3% | +5.4% | 60 | 34% |
| Information Technology | +0.5% | -3.2% | +1.4% | 45 | 24% |
| Financials | +0.4% | -2.9% | -3.0% | 59 | 32% |
| Communication Services | +0.1% | -1.6% | +4.8% | 61 | 26% |
| Energy | -0.0% | -4.2% | -3.7% | 58 | 52% |
| Consumer Staples | -0.1% | -3.7% | -5.3% | 45 | 34% |
Work the same data live: open the full stock screener, watch the live market dashboard, or check the market-timing read. New to the method? Start with the four stages.
Stage2Stocks is an educational stage-analysis screener. These wraps describe what the screen shows across NSE cash equities — they are not investment advice, recommendations, or buy/sell calls. Always do your own research.