Stock Market Today: Nifty and Sensex set to open higher, PMIs in focus
- India’s Nifty and Sensex are poised to rebound at open on Thursday after Wednesday’s negative close.
- On Wednesday, Nifty corrected from all-time high above 22,200, Sensex failed to sustain above 73,000.
- All eyes now remain on India and US PMI data and RBI Minutes after the hawkish Fed Minutes.
The Sensex 30 and Nifty 50, India’s key benchmark indices, are looking to jump back on the bids at the open on Thursday, having settled in the negative territory on Wednesday.
Optimism on global stocks, thanks to the encouraging earnings report from the American tech-giant Nvidia, which helped overshadow the market’s nervousness due to the hawkish US Federal Reserve (Fed) Minutes of the January meeting.
A modest uptick in the Gift Nifty futures also indicates a positive start for the Indian indices on Thursday.
On Wednesday, the National Stock Exchange (NSE) Nifty 50 lost 0.65% on the day to finish at 22,055.05 while the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensex 30 closed at 72,623.09, down 0.59%.
Stock market news
- India's benchmark indices snapped their six-day winning momentum in Wednesday’s trading, as sellers returned in the late trading amid a sharp decline in the IT, pharma and financial sector shares.
- Top gainers on Nifty included Tata Steel, JSW Steel, SBI Bank, IndusInd Bank and Tata Consumer Products. Meanwhile, Powergrid, NTPC, Wipro, Coal India and BPCL emerged as the main laggards.
- Among the corporate news, shares of Zee Entertainment eroded nearly 15% after a Bloomberg report revealed an accounting issue of over INR20 billion ($241.36 million) in the company’s accounts.
- Maruti Suzuki India got an inquiry from the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence.
- Paytm shares continued to hit the upper circuit after falling at record lows.
- World Bank, and others issued offshore India rupee bonds as demand soars.
- The US stock markets saw a mixed close on Wednesday.
- Nvidia released Q4 earnings after the close on Wednesday. Nvidia posted $5.16 earnings per share (EPS) vs. $4.64 expected while revenue stood at $22.10 billion vs. $20.62 billion expected. The AI pioneer said that it expected $24.0 billion in sales in the current quarter.
- The Fed Minutes stated, “most participants noted the risks of moving too quickly to ease the stance of policy and emphasized the importance of carefully assessing incoming data in judging whether inflation is moving down sustainably to 2 percent.”
- Markets are currently pricing in just about a 30% chance that the Fed could begin easing rates in May, much lower than an over 80% chance a month ago, according to the CME FedWatch Tool. For the June meeting, the probability for a rate cut now stands at 70%, down from 77% seen a day ago.
- People’s Bank of China (PBoC) cut the five-year Loan Prime Rate (LPR) by a record 25 bps from 4.20% to 3.95%. The PBOC rate cut failed to excite traders on Tuesday.
- India’s trade data for January showed last week a shrinking Trade Deficit of $17.49 billion.
- Attention now turns toward the Minutes of the RBI meeting, preliminary PMI data from India and the United States due later on Thursday.
Sensex FAQs
What is the Sensex?
The Sensex is a name for one of India’s most closely monitored stock indexes. The term was coined in the 1980s by analyst Deepak Mohoni by mashing the words sensitive and index together. The index plots a weighted average of the share price of 30 of the most established stocks on the Bombay Stock Exchange. Each corporation's weighting is based on its “free-float capitalization”, or the value of all its shares readily available for trading.
What factors drive the Sensex?
Given it is a composite, the value of the Sensex is first and foremost dependent on the performance of its constituent companies as revealed in their quarterly and annual results. Government policies are another factor. In 2016 the government decided to phase out high value currency notes, for example, and certain companies saw their share price fall as a result. When the government decided to cut corporation tax in 2019, meanwhile, the Sensex gained a boost. Other factors include the level of interest rates set by the Reserve Bank of India, since that dictates the cost of borrowing, climate change, pandemics and natural disasters
What are the key milestones for the Sensex?
The Sensex started life on April 1 1979 at a base level of 100. It reached its highest recorded level so far, at 73,328, on Monday, January 15, 2024 (this is being written in Feb 2024). The Index closed above the 10,000 mark for the first time on February 7, 2006. On March 13, 2014 the Sensex closed higher than Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index to become the major Asian stock index with the highest value. The index’s biggest gain in a single day occurred on April 7, 2020, when it rose 2,476 points; its deepest single-day loss occurred on January 21, 2008, when it plunged 1,408 points due the US subprime crisis.
What major corporations are in the Sensex?
Major companies within the Sensex include Reliance Industries Ltd, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, ITC Ltd, Bharti Airtel Ltd, Tata Steel, HCL Technologies, Infosys, State Bank of India, Sun Pharma, Tata Consultancy Services and Tech Mahindra.
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