Nifty auto, Nifty metal, Nifty media, and Nifty oil & gas were among the sectoral indices that saw the highest gains as Indian stock indices opened trading on Friday.
The benchmark Sensex and Nifty indices ranged from 0.2% to 0.3%.
The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of India increased by 7.8% in the first quarter of 2023–2024.India continues to be the fastest-growing major economy, with a GDP growth of 7.8%. The strong growth outlook and boosted GDP figures also helped the equities.
“Some headwinds like weakening monsoon and sluggish global growth are likely to weigh on markets. And now there is another headwind coming from the Brent crude rising to USD 87… These headwinds will constrain a sustained recovery in markets,” said VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.
“Long-term investors can utilise weakness in the market to buy high-quality stocks in banking, capital goods and automobiles,” Vijayakumar added.
Notably, Sensex recently breached the 67,000 mark for the first time in mid-July. Firm economic outlook, firm global markets, and a relative moderation in inflation then contributed to the bull run in Indian stocks.
Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) have remained net buyers in Indian stock markets for the sixth straight month till August, according to data from the National Securities Depository (NSDL). So far in 2023, foreign investors have put in Rs 135,287 crore in the Indian stock markets.
The benchmark Sensex is hovering around 65,000, with June and July inflation figures having depressed the market sentiments. Retail inflation in India rose sharply in July to 7.44 per cent, in the process breached RBI’s 6 per cent upper tolerance target, largely due to a sharp spurt in vegetable, fruit, and pulses prices.
In its latest policy meeting, the Reserve Bank of India upwardly revised the country’s retail inflation projections for 2023-24 at 5.4 per cent, against 5.1 per cent it projected in its previous monetary policy meeting in June.
