Sensex jumps 400 points, Nifty above 17,700 on gains in financial stocks

Following positive cues from global peers, benchmark equity indices opened higher on Friday, led by gains in banking and financial stocks.

The BSE Sensex was trading 453 points or 0.76% higher at 60,385 while Nifty50 was trading at 17,705, up 95 points or 0.54% around 9.17 am.

In the Sensex pack, IndusInd Bank and Titan were the top gainers, rising about 4-4.5%. Bajaj Finance, SBI, L&T, ICICI Bank, Bajaj Finserv, HDFC Bank and HDFC also opened higher.

However, Power Grid Corp, Nestle, Reliance, Tech Mahindra, Kotak Bank and HCL Tech opened with losses.

Sectorally, Nifty PSU Bank rose 1.90% and Nifty Financial Services surged 1.06%. While Nifty Metal and Nifty Oil & Gas opened lower. In the broader market, Nifty Smallcap50 rose 0.44% and Nifty Midcap50 advanced 0.46%.

Expert View
"The most significant trend in the market so far in 2023 is the big underperformance of India compared to other markets. The Adani crisis impact is slowly diminishing. The ferocious rally of 3.5% in Nasdaq yesterday is an indication that the market expects a soft landing of the U.S. economy. IT stocks look strong. High-quality private sector banking stocks and capital goods stocks also are on a strong wicket," V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services said.

Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research at HDFC Securities said, 17445-17670 could be the band for the Nifty in the near term.

Global Markets
The Nasdaq and S&P 500 ended higher on Thursday after touching roughly five-month intraday highs as a more dovish-than-expected message from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell boosted equities and Meta Platforms shares soared on rigorous cost controls.

The S&P 500 gained 1.48% to end at 4,180 points, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 3.26% to 12,201. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.11% to 34,055.

Asian shares turned lower on Friday. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan eased 0.5%, dragged down by a 1.4% slump in Chinese bluechips and a 1.8% tumble in Hong Kong's Hang Seng index. Japan's Nikkei outperformed, rising 0.35%.

Currency Watch
The Indian rupee rose by 12 paise to 82.08 against the US dollar in early trade.

The dollar index, which tracks the movement of the greenback against a basket of six major world currencies, increased 0.14% to 101.89 level.

Crude Price
Oil prices fell in early trade on Friday, heading for a second straight week of losses, as the market looked for more signs of a strong recovery in fuel demand in China to offset looming slumps in other major economies.

Brent crude futures fell 0.2%, to $82 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures declined 0.25% to $75.69 a barrel.

(With inputs from agencies)