Indian stock indices traded saw an uptick on Wednesday morning. They were largely steady for the past two sessions, primarily due to a lack of fresh bets at higher levels. Some investors who recently accumulated gains were apparently booking their profits. Several analysts have been pointing out that any further rally from the current peak seems unlikely as valuations were higher, and that is what seems to have been happening in the past two-odd sessions.
BSE-NSE scale new heights in past week
The indices touched all-time highs last week. In the past month, the indices — Sensex and Nifty — have cumulatively gained about 6 percentage points.
Sensex and Nifty were 0.7 per cent higher each at the time of writing this report. Among the Nifty 50 companies, 41 were in the green.
Know the top gainers AND losers at the stock market
L&T, Reliance Industries, Tata Motors, ITC, and UPL were the top gainers among the Nifty 50 companies, whereas SBI Life, Divislabs, Cipla, Apollo Hospitals, and ONGC were the top losers.
US Fed Policy
The next US Fed monetary policy meet is scheduled for July 25-26. The outcome of the meeting will be announced Wednesday midnight (Indian time). The US Federal Reserve’s monetary policy committee paused the key interest rate in its latest meeting. The policy rate has been maintained at 5.0-5.25 per cent, which was near zero after the outbreak of COVID-19.
Barring the latest pause, the US central bank has hiked the interest rate for the tenth consecutive time which was necessitated in the fight against soaring inflation. “Globally market participants will be closely watching the Fed chief Jerome Powell’s comments about the disinflation process in the US and the likely trend in interest rates. A 25 bp rate hike, already discounted by the market, will not trigger any market move,” said VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.
“But if the Fed chief indicates that inflation is coming under control and, therefore, no further rate hikes are needed, that will be a big trigger for markets to move up,” said Vijayakumar.
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