Domestic benchmark equity indices opened higher on Friday tracking Asian peers that are mostly trading higher following overnight gains for tech stocks stateside as the Nasdaq Composite rebounded. In opening trades, Sensex jumped 281 points or 0.47% to 60,201 while Nifty was quoting at 17,952 surging 78 points or 0.44%.
“The market is now caught in crosswinds – the tailwinds of good corporate results and sustained retail enthusiasm getting countered with the headwinds of inflation fears and sustained FII selling. The global backdrop is exhibiting mixed signals. The fact that the US markets didn’t crack in spite of unexpectedly high inflation and the European markets shrugged off the inflation fears reflect the underlying strength of this global rally despite high valuations,” said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.
The sustained FII selling – Rs 8458 cr selling till November 12th on top of the Rs 13550 cr selling in October – indicate where smart money is headed. But our experience in recent times has been “new money” trumping “smart money”. Investors have to be concerned about rising inflation and tweak their investment strategy in favour of businesses that have the pricing power to pass on the rising costs to customers, Vijayakumar added.
All sectoral indices opened in the green with the Nifty Metal index leading the sectoral pack up about 1.15% after robust results posted by Tata Steel. Nifty Realty, Nifty IT, Nifty Auto, Nifty Bank, Nifty Pharma and Nifty FMCG indices rose in the range of 0.19-0.99%.
The volatility gauge India VIX cooled off by 3.34% to 15.80 levels.
The broader markets mirrored the gains of benchmark indices as the BSE MidCap index gained 150 points or 0.57% at 26,369. Whereas BSE SmallCap index was trading at 29,315 up by 156 points or 0.54%.
Bulls had a tight grip on the markets as 1,633 shares advanced while 682 declined and 89 remained unchanged.
Coal India, Grasim Industries, Hero MotoCorp, Hindalco Industries, ONGC, Amara Raja Batteries, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise, Ashok Leyland, Mrs Bectors Food Specialities, Bharat Forge, Burger King, Force Motors, Glenmark Pharma, Motherson Sumi Systems, NALCO, NBCC, Paras Defence, and Suzlon Energy and others will be reporting their September quarter earnings today.
Overseas, Asian stocks are mostly trading higher on Friday following overnight gains for tech stocks stateside as the Nasdaq Composite rebounded.
In US, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq rebounded from two days of declines on Thursday as beaten-down chipmakers led gains, but losses in Walt Disney due to slowing subscriber growth in its streaming video service weighed on the Dow.