Indian shares opened a tad higher on Friday as crude oil prices continued to fall on demand worries, helping ease concerns around inflation and further interest-rate hikes.
The fight against inflation is far from over and the latest pause in repo rate is tactical and not a pivot or a change in policy direction, according to this month’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting released on Thursday.
The benchmark S&P/BSE Sensex was up 143 points, or 0.2 percent, at 59,775 in early trade, while the broader NSE Nifty index edged up 23 points, or 0.1 percent, to 17,647.
HCL Technologies jumped 2 percent after posting Q4 results in line with expectations.
Divis Laboratories surged 1.5 percent after falling 4 percent in the previous session.
Hero MotoCorp, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Wipro all rose around 1 percent while Hindalco, Eicher Motors, JSW Steel, Tech Mahindra and Tata Steel all were down about 1 percent.
ICICI Prudential Life Insurance dropped 0.8 percent despite reporting a 27 percent growth in quarterly net profit, aided by a strong growth in value of new business.
Reliance Industries and ICICI Bank were seeing modest gains ahead of their earnings results.
Vodafone Idea surged 8 percent after Aditya Birla Group (ABG) chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla re-joined the company’s board.
Rail Vikas Nigam added 1.6 percent. A consortium of the company and Siemens has bagged two separate orders from Gujarat Metro Rail.
Market Analysis
Sensex, Nifty Open Higher In Cautious Trade
2023-04-21 04:10:21
