In line with the rise in global peers, benchmark equity indices opened higher for the fourth consecutive day on Friday, led by banking, auto, and IT stocks.
The BSE Sensex was trading 302 points or 0.42% higher at 72,353. Nifty50 was trading at 22,007, up 97 points or 0.44% at around 9.20 am.
From the Sensex pack, Infosys, Wipro, Tata Motors, UltraTech Cement, and M&M opened with gains, while Power Grid, Sun Pharma, ITC, Axis Bank, and Reliance Industries opened with cuts.
Among individual stocks, newly listed Alpex Solar opened with a 5% upper circuit after BofA Securities picked up a marginal stake in the company through the open market on Thursday. According to exchange data, BofA bought 2.2 lakh shares at Rs 337 apiece.
Yes Bank shares rose 2.4% in early trade after Global private equity major Carlyle Group on Thursday sold a 1.4% stake in the private sector lender for approximately Rs 1,057 crore.
Sector-wise, Nifty Auto rose 1.5%, led by TVS Motor, Tata Motors, Bajaj Auto, and M&M. Nifty Bank, IT, Media, Metal, Pharma, Consumer Durables, and Oil & Gas also opened higher.
In the broader market, Nifty Midcap100 rose 0.4%, and Nifty SMallcap100 surged 0.7%.
Experts View
“The market has been range bound in recent days due to bouts of selling and buying. The global market construct continues to be favourable with the mother market US remaining resilient with S&P 500 at record highs,” said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services.
“Pockets of overvaluation in the broader market continue to be a worry. Banking stocks are fairly valued. RIL is strong,” he said.
Deven Mehata, Research Analyst at Choice Broking, said, “Nifty can find support at 21,900 followed by 21,850 and 21,800. On the higher side, 22,050 can be an immediate resistance, followed by 22,100 and 22,150.”
Global Markets
Japan’s Nikkei charged toward an all-time high on Friday, helped higher by a buoyant Wall Street after a big fall in U.S. retail sales revived the chance of a June rate cut, which in turn weighed on the dollar.
Nikkei surged 1.4% to 38,678 points, just within a whisker of the all-time high of 38,957 points hit in 1989 that marked the peak of Japan’s so called bubble economy.
Overnight, data showed that U.S. retail sales fell by 0.8% in January, the sharpest drop in 10 months, confounding expectations of a small dip of 0.1%. That cheered Wall Street with the S&P 500 gaining 0.6%, the Nasdaq Composite up 0.30% and Dow Jones Industrial Average firming 0.91%.
FIIs net seller
Foreign portfolio investors have offloaded shares worth Rs 4,919 crore in the first half of February, according to National Securities Depository data.
On the contrary, domestic institutional investors have been net buyers in nine out of the 11 sessions in February so far, injecting 158.22 billion rupees into the capital market segment, according to provisional data from the National Stock Exchange.
“The trend of FII selling is likely to continue since the 10-year US bond yield is high at 4.24%. The trend of DII buying too is likely to continue since the flows into the DIIs continue to be robust,” said Vijayakumar.
Oil flat
Oil prices stalled on Friday over a forecast of slowing demand by the International Energy Agency after gaining in the previous session on weak U.S. retail sales data that sparked optimism that the Fed might cut interest rates sooner than expected.
Brent crude futures were down 9 cents, or 0.1%, to $82.77 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose 4 cent to $78.07 a barrel.
Currency Watch
The Indian rupee rose 4 paise to $83.01 against the US dollar in early trade. The dollar index, which tracks the movement of the greenback against a basket of six major world currencies, increased 0.13% to 104.43 level.
(With inputs from agencies)
(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of Economic Times)
