The index closed the week almost where it started, down 0.2% to 23346, but that number hides a week that opened with a crash. Wednesday's session alone wiped out breadth to levels not seen in this six-week window, and Thursday-Friday's sharp recovery has only clawed back part of the damage. The Stage-2 cohort, the advancing names this screen exists to find, ended the week at its narrowest point in 30 sessions.
The week that actually happened
Look past Friday's cheerful advance-decline read of 1600 to 876 and the +0.3% close. The week's arithmetic is a loss: Nifty fell 0.2% to 23346, still below its 200-day average and 11.3% off its 52-week high. The 'transition' regime label has now held for 13 straight sessions, but this was not a quiet transition. Wednesday saw advancers collapse to 390 against 2111 decliners, the advance-decline ratio hitting 0.18, the worst reading in the 30-session window, and net new 52-week highs minus lows falling to -201, also a window low. Thursday and Friday clawed back the advance-decline ratio to multi-week highs, but that is a bounce off a washout, not a reversal of trend. The share of stocks above their 200-day average narrowed across the week from 41% to 39.8%, and breadth off the 20-day average is still only 36.5%, meaning almost two-thirds of the market sits below its short-term average even after two up days.
Stage-2 keeps shrinking, quietly
The number that matters more than any single day's bounce: the Stage-2 cohort, stocks in a confirmed advance, fell to 31.9% of the market, its lowest point in the last 30 sessions, down 22 stocks over the week to 802 names. It has now dropped 6.2 points over 20 sessions and even the 60-day trend has turned negative, down 1.6 points, erasing what had been a slow build since August. Transitions confirm the drain: over the last five sessions just 27 stocks moved from basing into an advance while 61 rolled from advance into topping, a net loss of 34. That ratio, roughly one up-move for every two rollovers, has been running negative for 17 straight sessions. Golden crosses (7) are now outnumbered by death crosses (8), a flip that has shown up only once before in this window.
Sector split: cyclicals bounced, but three-month leadership tells the real story
Friday's leaderboard was Industrials, Utilities and Communication Services, all up sharply on the day, but a one-day bounce in beaten-down cyclicals is not the week's trend. Over the week itself, Health Care and Communication Services were the only sectors with a genuinely positive tape, each up around 0.7%, while Energy fell 1.2% and Information Technology fell 0.8% to lead the laggards. Zoom to three months and the picture sharpens: Health Care is up over 10%, Consumer Discretionary up 6.3%, both comfortably ahead of a market where Utilities are down 8.7% and Consumer Staples down 5.2% over the same stretch. Energy stands out structurally rather than tactically: its Stage-2 share has expanded 16 points over 20 sessions to 51.7%, the healthiest cohort expansion in the market, even though the sector lagged on the tape this week. That is a sector building a base under the surface while price stays soft, worth tracking rather than trading yet.
What the setups say
The early-stage list, names still close to their 50-day average rather than already extended, is dominated by Health Care and small industrials: Alembic and Anuh Pharma from pharma, Asian Hotels (North) from consumer discretionary, Hatsun Agro Product from staples, and Pitti Engineering from industrials. These sit at the early end of a Stage-2 move in a week where the overall Stage-2 pool is shrinking, so the bar for genuine new entries is higher than the setup score alone suggests. On the other end, the most extended trends, Fineotex Chemical, Raymond, Bhageria Industries and Welspun Enterprises among them, are already well into their runs. They tell you where momentum has been, not where it is going; treat that list as a map of what led, not a shopping list.
Posture
A two-day bounce after a genuine breadth washout does not undo a narrowing Stage-2 cohort or a market still below its 200-day average. The near-term read stays neutral-to-down. This is a week for selectivity over conviction: the early-stage names in Health Care and pockets of Industrials deserve attention, but with net transitions still negative and death crosses outnumbering golden crosses, chasing Friday's bounce across the broad market would be fighting the internals, not trading with them.
| Stock | Sector | Move | Setup |
|---|---|---|---|
| Manoj Vaibhav Gems N Jewellers Ltd | Consumer Discretionary | 1→2 | 8.3 |
| Kiri Industries Ltd | Materials | 1→2 | 7.4 |
| Kamat Hotels (India) Ltd | Consumer Discretionary | 1→2 | 7.0 |
| Persistent Systems Ltd | Information Technology | 1→2 | 5.1 |
| Dhunseri Investments Ltd | Financials | 1→2 | 4.5 |
| Arihant Capital Markets Ltd | Financials | 1→2 | 4.5 |
| eMudhra Ltd | Information Technology | 1→2 | 4.3 |
| Clean Science and Technology Ltd | Materials | 1→2 | 4.0 |
| Stock | Sector | Setup | RS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fineotex Chemical Ltd | Materials | 9.8 | 97 |
| Raymond Ltd | Consumer Discretionary | 9.8 | 90 |
| Bhageria Industries Ltd | Materials | 9.8 | 91 |
| Welspun Enterprises Ltd | Industrials | 9.8 | 93 |
| Oriental Aromatics Ltd | Materials | 9.6 | 89 |
| Sakar Healthcare Ltd | Health Care | 9.5 | 99 |
| Man Industries (India) Ltd | Industrials | 9.4 | 96 |
| Sterlite Technologies Ltd | Communication Services | 9.4 | 99 |
| Sector | 1D | 1M | 3M | RS | Stage 2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Industrials | +2.3% | -1.2% | -0.7% | 68 | 27% |
| Utilities | +1.9% | -1.2% | -8.7% | 57 | 15% |
| Communication Services | +1.7% | +0.2% | +5.6% | 62 | 23% |
| Real Estate | +1.3% | -3.6% | +5.6% | 54 | 26% |
| Materials | +1.3% | -1.3% | -0.7% | 64 | 36% |
| Financials | +1.2% | -1.6% | -1.9% | 59 | 31% |
| Health Care | +1.0% | +2.0% | +10.1% | 72 | 47% |
| Consumer Discretionary | +0.9% | -2.3% | +6.3% | 60 | 34% |
| Consumer Staples | +0.1% | -3.3% | -5.2% | 45 | 34% |
| Energy | -0.4% | -3.7% | -2.7% | 57 | 52% |
| Information Technology | -0.9% | -4.4% | +3.1% | 44 | 24% |
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.