Sensex, Nifty Open Higher As Financials Gain On Strong Quarterly Updates

Indian shares opened slightly higher on Wednesday, aided by strong quarterly updates from finance companies and banks, while inflation concerns kept investors cautious a day ahead of the Reserve Bank of India’s monetary policy decision.

The Nifty 50 index was up 0.41% at 17,469.55, as of 9:38 a.m. IST. The S&P BSE Sensex rose 0.44% to 59,376.83.

Eight of the 13 major sectoral indexes advanced with high weightage financials rising nearly 1%. Bajaj Finance rose over 3% and was among the top Nifty 50 gainers after new loans booked during the March quarter grew by 20% YoY.

Index heavyweight HDFC Bank rose over 1.5% after the company reported 20.8% year-on-year rise in deposits to 18.84 trillion rupees, as of March 31.

Upstream oil companies rose after the government cut its windfall tax on crude oil to zero, and halved it on diesel.

Analysts await the Reserve Bank of India’s rate decision on Thursday. The RBI is likely to raise rates by 25 basis points on Thursday and then pause for the rest of the year, according to a Reuters poll of economists.

The central bank raised the repo rate by 250 bps to 6.50% last financial year.

Global equities remained muted after data showed that U.S. job openings fell to a near two-year low in February.

The cooling in the labour market, a crucial aspect of combating inflation, also sharply boosted the odds of the Federal Reserve pausing on rate hikes in May.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)