By Bharath Rajeswaran
(Reuters) -India’s equity benchmarks tiptoed towards record-high levels on Thursday, led by Reliance and as a solid quarterly earnings scorecard left investors optimistic about prospects for a broader rebound in Indian consumer spending.
The Nifty 50 rose 0.12% to 26,084, while the BSE Sensex was up 0.11% at 85,284.37, as of 10:01 a.m. IST.
Both benchmarks remain roughly 0.7% below their all-time highs reached in September 2024.
The return of foreign inflows to Indian equities also aided sentiment.
Provisional NSE data showed foreign investors bought 15.81 billion rupees ($178.4 million) of shares on Wednesday, while domestic institutions added 13.61 billion rupees.
Other Asian markets rose 1.3%, tracking an overnight rally on Wall Street, as investors cheered Nvidia’s upbeat earnings.
Nine of the 16 major sectors advanced, with broader small-cap and mid-cap indexes advancing about 0.3% each.
“We expect the market to witness a gradual up-move with a cautious undertone as the global macro data unfolds,” said Siddhartha Khemka, head of research for wealth management at Motilal Oswal Financial Services.
Investors await the release of the U.S. September jobs report, due later in the day, for clues on the Federal Reserve’s rate-cut trajectory. [MKTS/GLOB]
Among individual stocks, the third highest weighted stock on the benchmark, Reliance Industries gained 1.3%. UBS reiterated its “buy” call on the oil-to-telecom conglomerate, saying that its strength in refining is likely to drive improvement in the oil-to-chemicals business.
Motilal Oswal also reiterated “buy” and raised price target, citing an improvement in Reliance’s new energy business.
Two-wheeler maker Hero MotoCorp gained 2.3% after Macquarie upgraded to “outperform” from “neutral”, citing a boost to earnings from goods and services tax (GST) cuts and new product launches.
Construction firm NBCC gained 2% after securing work orders worth 29.66 billion rupees.
($1 = 88.6310 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Ronojoy Mazumdar)
