Indian stock indices continued to remain green as they built on the previous week’s sharp gains.
Benchmark Sensex and Nifty were 0.7 per cent higher this morning. Last week, the indices accumulated around 3 per cent each, their highest in months.
Notably, Sensex today crossed 65,000 markets for the first time. HDFC and HDFC Bank were among the top gainers this morning after their merger. JSW Steel, Ultratech Cements, and Grasim Industries were gainers among the Nifty 50.
These remarkable gains reflect the growing optimism among investors as inflationary pressures in the United States appear to be moderating. This development has sparked renewed confidence in the equity markets, propelling Indian shares to unprecedented heights.
“The ongoing rally in global stock markets is primarily driven by the surprising and unexpected strength of the US economy ( 2 per cent GDP growth in Q1 23), in spite of the savage 500 basis points rate hike by the Fed,” said VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.
“Global markets which had discounted a US recession by mid-2023 have been proved wrong and the markets are now compensating for the excessive pessimistic discounting in 2022.”
An important point of distinction between the rally in the US and in India is that the rise in the former country is primarily being led by tech stocks while here it is more “broad-based”. Continued foreign fund inflow in Indian stocks too buoyed the indices.
“Since the strength of the market momentum is high, the rally can continue; but valuations are getting stretched, “VK Vijayakumar added. Meanwhile, Ajit Mishra, SVP – Technical Research, Religare Broking Ltd, recommended maintaining the “buy on dips” approach for investors as range seen in the 19,350-19,500 zone for Nifty.
14 out of the 15 sector gauges — compiled by the National Stock Exchange — were trading in the green. Sub-indexes Nifty Metal, Nifty Bank, Nifty Financial Services, Nifty Auto, Nifty Consumer Durables and Nifty Oil & Gas were outperforming the NSE platform by rising as much as 1.20 per cent, 0.66 per cent, 0.81 per cent, 0.79 per cent, 0.68 per cent and 0.55 per cent, respectively.
On the stock-specific front, JSW Steel was the top gainer in the Nifty pack as the stock gained 2.79 per cent to trade at Rs 806.70. HDFC twins (HDFC and HDFC Bank), Eicher Motors and Grasim Industries Mahindra rose up to 2.40 per cent. On the flipside, Nifty Realty shed 0.03 per cent.
In contrast, PowerGrid, Maruti, Sun Pharma, UPL and Tech Mahindra were among the top laggards.
The overall market breadth was positive as 2,121 shares were advancing while 873 were declining on BSE.
On the 30-share BSE index, HDFC duo, Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, SBI, Infosys, M&M and UltraTech Cement were among the top gainers.
Also, Suzlon Energy, Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders, HLE Glasscoat HFCL and Sterlite Tech surged up to 10 per cent. In contrast, UTI AMC, Tamilnad Mercantile Bank, Saregama and Godrej Consumer Products slipped up to 2.43 per cent.
The domestic benchmarks settled at their fresh record closing highs on Friday. Sensex had jumped 803 points or 1.26 per cent to close at 64,719, while Nifty had moved 217 points or 1.14 per cent to end the session at 19,189.
(with inputs from ANI)
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