The Nifty added 0.34% today, clawing back a sliver of yesterday's 1.64% drop, but that is the only good news on the tape. The regime label has now sat in a neutral-to-down read for eighteen straight sessions, and the share of stocks in a genuine Stage-2 advance slipped to 30.7%, the lowest print in the last month. This is a bounce inside a tape that is still losing participants, not a turn.
The flow keeps draining
Stocks moving up the stage ladder minus stocks moving down has now been negative for 22 consecutive sessions. Today's net reading of -51 is barely off yesterday's -54, itself the weakest of the past month. The Stage-2 cohort has shrunk by nearly 4 points over both the last month and the last three, and advance-decline ratio, after cratering to 0.18 on the 15th and 0.29 yesterday, is back to a coin-flip 1.01 today. That is relief, not strength. Only 38% of stocks sit above their 20-day average and just 36% above their 50-day, meaning roughly two in three names are still below both. Golden crosses are down to four, tied with the lowest count of the window, while death crosses also sit at four, so at least the bleed in crossovers has stalled rather than accelerated.
Energy is the one sector building quietly
Every other sector shows Stage-2 participation shrinking over the past month, Industrials and Real Estate down roughly 7-9 points, Financials down over 6. Energy is the outlier: 55% of the sector is in Stage-2, up close to 21 points in twenty sessions. Underneath it, Oil & Gas Equipment & Services is at 88% Stage-2 with a 37-point gain, and Exploration & Production is at 67% with a 33-point gain. That is one small sector doing the work while the rest of the market rolls over, and it is the kind of pocket worth tracking rather than a reason to call the broader tape healthy.
Setups on the screen today
The early-stage list is led by Nocil, Wockhardt and SoftTech Engineers, all still close to their 50-day average, meaning the move has not run far yet. At the other end, names like Bhageria Industries, Spectrum Electrical and Raymond carry the highest setup scores on the board, but that is a function of how far they have already travelled, not a queue of fresh entries. With median setup score at a monthly low of 5.7 and breadth still deteriorating underneath the index, this reads as a day for selectivity over conviction.
| Stock | Sector | Setup | % 1D |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nocil Ltd | Materials | 8.0 | -1.6% |
| Wockhardt Ltd | Health Care | 7.8 | -1.0% |
| SoftTech Engineers Ltd | Information Technology | 7.8 | -1.3% |
| Strides Pharma Science Ltd | Health Care | 7.8 | -1.5% |
| Maharashtra Seamless Ltd | Industrials | 7.7 | +1.0% |
| Ratnamani Metals and Tubes Ltd | Industrials | 7.4 | -1.6% |
| Graphite India Ltd | Industrials | 7.4 | +0.7% |
| Orient Bell Ltd | Industrials | 7.4 | +4.2% |
| Sector | 1D | 1M | 3M | RS | Stage 2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Real Estate | +0.7% | -2.8% | +8.2% | 55 | 20% |
| Utilities | +0.6% | -2.2% | -8.5% | 57 | 15% |
| Consumer Discretionary | +0.5% | -2.8% | +7.2% | 59 | 32% |
| Materials | +0.5% | -3.0% | +2.2% | 64 | 37% |
| Consumer Staples | +0.4% | -2.6% | -3.7% | 47 | 32% |
| Financials | +0.3% | -4.6% | -3.5% | 57 | 29% |
| Industrials | +0.3% | -2.1% | -0.2% | 66 | 25% |
| Energy | +0.2% | -3.4% | -2.1% | 56 | 55% |
| Information Technology | -0.0% | -5.4% | +3.3% | 42 | 24% |
| Health Care | -0.3% | +1.2% | +8.4% | 72 | 48% |
| Communication Services | -0.5% | -4.4% | +4.5% | 58 | 22% |
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.