Stock market today: BSE Sensex and Nifty50, the Indian equity benchmark indices, moved up in opening trade on Thursday. While BSE Sensex was above 81,700, Nifty50 was above 25,050. At 9:17 AM, BSE Sensex was trading at 81,727.16, up 260 points or 0.32%. Nifty50 was at 25,064.95, up 83 points or 0.33%.
The domestic stock market experienced a rally following the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) decision to maintain the repo rate but shift its policy stance to ‘neutral’.However, the Nifty index relinquished its early gains and closed flat on Wednesday.
Siddhartha Khemka, Head of Research at Motilal Oswal’s Wealth Management division, anticipates a period of consolidation in the near term due to investor caution. The focus is expected to be on the IT sector as TCS is set to announce its Q2FY25 results on Thursday. Globally, the FOMC meeting minutes will be closely watched.
Nagaraj Shetti of HDFC Securities suggests that while the short-term trend of the Nifty remains positive, the lack of strength in the current upside bounce may lead to further weakness near recent lows before another round of upward movement. The immediate resistance level to watch is 25,250.
In the United States, Wall Street stocks advanced on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average reaching record closing highs ahead of the release of September inflation data and the upcoming earnings season.
Asian equities also rose on Thursday, following the fresh high set by US stocks. The US dollar traded near a two-month peak against major peers as markets grew more confident about the Federal Reserve’s patient approach to further monetary easing.
Several stocks are in the F&O ban period today, including BirlaSoft, Bandhan Bank, Hindustan Copper, RBL Bank, Granules, Manappuram, PNB, GNFC, IDFC First Bank, SAIL, and Tata Chemicals. Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) turned net sellers, offloading shares worth Rs 4,563 crore on Wednesday, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought shares worth Rs 3,509 crore.
