Sensex rises 200 points, Nifty above 23,300 as oil prices cool down. What lies ahead?

The Indian stock market traded higher on Friday morning, with benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty recording gains as oil prices slightly cooled down to $104 per barrel after a sharp rally earlier.

Sensex rose around 200 points to trade above 74,510 while Nifty 50 gained 62 points to 23,332 on Friday morning, as seen at around 10 am. Broader markets outperformed, with Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 indices gaining up to 1%.

Eternal, IndiGo, Bharti Airtel and L&T shares rose more than 1% each to lead gains on Sensex, while Adani Ports, UltraTech Cement, HDFC Bank, Bajaj Finance and Axis Bank shares were up nearly 1% each. Bucking the trend, TCS, Tech Mahindra, Infosys and HCL Tech shares fell 1-3% to lead losses on Sensex.


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Nearly all sectoral indices, except Nifty IT traded in the green, with Nifty Realty jumping around 2% to lead gains. The overall market breadth remained positive, with NSE seeing 2,208 advances against 819 declines, while 102 stocks remained unchanged.

What lies ahead for Dalal Street?

An interesting feature of the current trend in the mother market US is its surprising resilience amidst many headwinds, said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Investments. He noted that under normal circumstances, rising bond yields pull the market down. But now, despite the 10-year yield breaching the psychological 5% mark, the market exhibited surprising resilience.

The logical explanation is that the market is discounting impressive corporate earnings that can counter the high bond yields, the analyst said, adding that US macros indicate a robust economy driven by huge investment and sustaining high consumption. This underlying strength of the economy is supporting the market which continues to be buoyant, and this strength of the mother market is supporting markets elsewhere, he added.

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“The ongoing boom in the Indian primary market has paradoxically opened up opportunities for investors in the secondary market. The focus of investors now is the IPO market and the listing gains from IPOs. Consequently the secondary market is languishing with prices of large-caps getting depressed. For long-term investors, this is an opportunity. Leading banks, capital goods majors, select automobiles and pharmaceutical stocks provide buying opportunities,” Vijayakumar said.

Technical view on Nifty

While yesterday’s upside evolved on anticipated lines, Nifty fell short of meeting the 23,400-23,560 objectives, said Anand James, Chief Market Strategist at Geojit Investments. “We are inclined to retain hopes of upsides today, but the pullback following rejection trades has kept the prices within the bearish construct,” he wrote.

This prompts the analyst to look for Nifty floating above the 23,260-23,220 region to maintain positivity. He will however wait for a break past 23,116 to re-consider prospects of 22,600-21,800.

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(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)