Indian stocks rise marginally; Nifty metal top mover
Sep 01, 2023
New Delhi [India], September 1 : Indian stock indices started Friday’s trade on a marginally positive note, with Nifty auto, Nifty metal, Nifty media, and Nifty oil and gas among the sectoral indices gaining the most.
Benchmark Sensex and Nifty indices were in a range between 0.2-0.3 per cent.
India saw a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate of 7.8 per cent in the first quarter (April-June) of 2023-24. With a GDP growth of 7.8 per cent, India continues to be the fastest-growing major economy. The buoyed GDP numbers and firm growth outlook also supported the stocks.
“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.
