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Nifty ended Thursday's trading session 188 points higher, just above the 24,800 level, to form a long bull candle on the daily chart on Thursday expiry where 10-day EMA continued to offer support during consolidations.Nifty is now advancing towards a key overhead resistance of 24,960 (1.786% Fibonacci extension, taken from the bottom of March 23, top of Sept 23 and bottom of Oct 23). Hence, one may expect volatility/consolidations around 24,950-25,000 levels in the short term, said Nagaraj Shetti of HDFC Securities.Open Interest (OI) data showed that the highest OI on the call side was observed at 25,000 and 25,300 strike prices, while on the put side, it was at 24,500 strike price.What should traders do? Here’s what analysts said:Chandan Taparia, Motilal OswalNifty has been making a higher top - higher bottom formations on the weekly scale and supports are gradually shifting higher. Index continued its winning streak for seventh consecutive weeks and base has shifted from 24,000 to 24,500 zones to extend the momentum towards 25,000 and 25,250 zones. Overall, it seems that the index is well positioned to scale higher than 25.000 and 25,250 zones with shifts in support zones.Rupak De, Senior Technical Analyst, LKP SecuritiesNifty remained volatile during the session, engulfing Wednesday's Doji pattern. The trend and momentum remain positive, with the index staying above critical short-term moving averages and a positive crossover in the daily RSI. In the short term, the trend is likely to remain positive as long as the index stays above 24,500. On the higher end, the current trend might take the index towards 25,000 in the near term.Shrikant Chouhan, Head Equity Research, Kotak SecuritiesFor the trend following traders now, 24,700/81,000 would act as a sacrosanct support zone. Above 24,700/81,000, the market could continue the positive momentum till 24,900-24,950/81,600-81,800. On the flip side, below 24,700/81,000, traders may prefer to exit out from the trading long positions. Below which it could retest the level of 24,500-24,475/80,400-80,300.(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

Infosys, India’s second-largest IT services giant, has seen a reduction in its headcount during the April to June period by 1,908 employees, marking the sixth consecutive quarterly decline in its total workforce.Its total employees for the period ending June stood at 315,332 as compared to 317,240 in the March quarter. The employee count declined by 20,962 from a year ago.The company said it plans to hire around 15,000-20,000 freshers in the year ahead.The attrition rate for Q1 of the fiscal year 2025 on the last twelve-month basis edged up to 12.7%, from 12.6% in the previous quarter.In comparison, its bigger peer and country’s largest IT major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) saw net addition of 5,452 employees for the April to June quarter ending its total employee count at 606,998.While smaller rival HCLTech, the third largest player in the sector, witnessed a substantial drop in its employee count by 8,080 for the three-month period ending June.Reporting financial earnings on Thursday, Infosys said its first-quarter net profit declined 20.1% sequentially, despite seeing a revenue gain of 3.7% quarter on quarter (Q-o-Q).Its net profit rose 7.1% year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 6,368 crore from a year ago’s Rs 5,945 crore in Q1FY24.For FY25, its revenue guidance, a key monitorable for investors, was also revised to 3-4% in constant currency terms from 1-3% stated in the previous quarter.

The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday searched the premises of Haryana Congress MLA Rao Dan Singh, a metal fabricating company and its promoters as part of a money laundering probe linked to an alleged Rs 1,392 crore worth bank loan fraud case, official sources said. About 15 locations, including those in Mahendragarh, Bahadurgarh and Gurugram in Haryana, Delhi and Jamshedpur in Jharkhand, were being searched by the central agency's Gurugram zonal office. A team of central armed police force (CAPF) personnel accompanied the search teams. The premises of the 65-year-old MLA from Mahendragarh constituency, including a farm house in Rewari, locations of his son Akshat Singh, the company Allied Strips Limited (ASL) and its promoters Mohinder Agrawal, Gaurav Agrawal and some others were being raided, the sources said. ASL manufactures cold roll steel products. The company is alleged to be involved in a bank loan fraud case of Rs 1,392 crore and was booked by the CBI in 2022. It is alleged that Rao Dan Singh's family and his companies took loan money from ASL but never returned and later these funds were written off, the sources said. The MLA had contested the recent Lok Sabha polls from the Bhiwani-Mahendragarh seat as a Congress nominee. He lost to BJP's Dharambir Singh by a margin of over 41,000 votes.