Indian stocks start fresh week with marginal gains; selloff by FPIs a concern

New Delhi [India], January 16 : Indian stocks opened the new week's trade marginally higher but concerns over slowing global economic growth continue to remain on the investors' mind.
At the time of writing this report, Sensex traded at 60,392.31 points or 131.13 points or 0.22 per cent, whereas Nifty traded at 17,975.90 points, up 19.30 points or 0.11 per cent.
Pulling out of funds by foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) from India too is a concern. They have sold assets worth about Rs 15,068 crore in Indian stock markets in the first two weeks of 2023, the latest data from National Securities Depository showed.
Notably, barring July, August, November, and December when they were net buyers, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) had been selling equities in the Indian markets for over a year, which started in October 2021 for various reasons. In 2022, foreign portfolio investors overall sold Rs 121,439 crore worth of stocks in India on a cumulative basis, the historical data available on the NSDL website showed.
"So (as) long as the fundamentals of the economy and corporate earnings are good, FII (foreign investors) selling is unlikely to impact the market significantly," said VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.
Asian shares started cautiously on Monday as investors waited nervously to see if the Bank of Japan (BOJ) will defend its super-sized stimulus policy at a meeting this week, said Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research, HDFC securities.
Meanwhile, the rupee started Monday's trade with little appreciation. It opened at 81.24 against Friday's close of 81.33.
"CPI (retail inflation) data helped rupee buyers as overall inflation trend kept coming lower due to interest rate hikes done by central banks globally thus market pricing in the pause period in rate cycle going ahead" said Jateen Trivedi, VP Research Analyst at LKP Securities.
Rupee can be now seen in a range of 81.10-81.60, said Trivedi.