Post Session: Quick Review

Indian equity benchmarks staged an enthusiastic performance on Friday, by rallying over one and half percent led by IT sector stocks. Strong global cues were supportive for the Indian markets during the day. Positive US retail sales, CPI, and jobless data raised hopes of a potential rate cut by the US Fed next month. Domestically, markets maintained their gaining momentum till the end. As for broader indices, the BSE Mid cap index and Small cap index also ended with gains of over one and half percent.

Markets made gap-up opening and extended their gains tracking the broadly positive cues from Wall Street overnight. Some optimism came as Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the government is taking steps to transform India into a global manufacturing hub, and he called for improving the quality of products and services to attain international standards. Meanwhile, Amitabh Kant, former CEO of NITI Aayog and G20 Sherpa, highlighted India’s rapid transformation into the third-best startup ecosystem globally, with 135 unicorns and over 1.4 lakh startups. In afternoon session, indices gained more traction as investors continued to hunt for fundamentally strong stocks. Sentiments were positive with a private report stating that the rural economy of India has emerged as a significant driver of economic growth, outpacing urban areas largely due to increased government spending in the recent quarters. Traders took note of report that India, the world's third largest oil consuming and importing nation, in July bought $ 2.8 billion worth of crude oil from Russia, second only to China, which remains the largest importer of Russian oil. Finally, markets ended trade near day’s high levels. 

On the global front, European markets were trading mostly in green after having rallied sharply the previous day on hopes of a soft landing for the world's largest economy. All Asian markets ended higher as encouraging U.S. data on inflation and retail sales allayed recession fears in the world's largest economy but prompted traders to push back expectations for aggressive rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. Back home, merchandise exports during April-July 2024 were $144.12 billion as compared to $138.39 billion during April-July 2023. Merchandise imports during April-July 2024 were $229.70 billion compared to $213.53 billion during April-July 2023.

The BSE Sensex ended at 80,436.84, up by 1330.96 points or 1.68% after trading in a range of 79,306.69 and 80,518.21. There were 29 stocks advancing against 1 stocks declining on the index. (Provisional)

The broader indices ended in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 1.80%, while Small cap index up by 1.70%. (Provisional)

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were IT up by 2.72%, Realty up by 2.45%, TECK up by 2.23%, Auto up by 1.90% and Basic Materials was up by 1.89%, while there no losing sectoral indices on the BSE. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tech Mahindra up by 4.02%, Tata Motors up by 3.47%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 3.45%, TCS up by 2.91% and Ultratech Cement up by 2.90%. On the flip side, Sun Pharma down by 0.03% were the top losers. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, expressing optimism over India’s startup ecosystem, Amitabh Kant, former CEO of NITI Aayog and G20 Sherpa has highlighted the country’s rapid transformation into the third-best startup ecosystem globally, with 135 unicorns and over 1.4 lakh startups. Kant said ‘We started with 356 startups. Today we have 1,40,000 startups. We have about 135 unicorns. We’ve created the third-best ecosystem in the world. The startup ecosystem would get a huge impetus from the abolition of the angel tax, which is now being done.’

Kant praised the removal of the Angel Tax in this year’s budget, which will benefit startups. He also stressed the importance of creating global champions through initiatives like the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme. In this year’s budget, the Angel Tax has been removed, which will greatly help the startups in India. Calling for a more substantial local investment to sustain the growth of the sector, he said ‘We would now require a lot of Indians, Indian pension funds, insurance companies, all to invest in our own startup. 75 per cent of the resources in our startup movement come from abroad. More and more Indians must invest in our own startup movement. That is the way forward. But we’ve done remarkably well as a startup nation.’

He also highlighted India’s ambition to become a global economic powerhouse by 2047, stressing the importance of domestic investment and the government’s push to create global champions through initiatives like the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme. On the global stage, Kant believes that India is viewed as a key driver of growth in a challenging global economic environment. Underscoring India’s robust growth rate, terming it as ‘remarkable’, he said ‘India is the fastest-growing nation. We have grown at about 8.4 per cent which is remarkable and we will accelerate the pace of our growth as we go further. We want to become the third-largest economy in the world.’

The CNX Nifty ended at 24,541.15, up by 397.40 points or 1.65% after trading in a range of 24,204.50 and 24,563.90. There were 47 stocks advancing against 3 stocks declining on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on Nifty were Wipro up by 4.26%, Tech Mahindra up by 4.00%, Grasim Industries up by 3.50%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 3.47% and Tata Motors up by 3.39%. On the flip side, Divi's Lab down by 0.60%, SBI Life down by 0.19% and Dr. Reddy's Lab down by 0.11% were the top losers.(Provisional)

European markets were trading mostly in green; France’s CAC rose 23.83 points or 0.32% to 7,447.20 and Germany’s DAX was up by 136.5 points or 0.75% to 18,319.74. On the flip side, UK’s FTSE 100 was down by 35 points or 0.42% to 8,312.35.

Asian markets settled higher on Friday, as the robust USeconomic data trivialized jitters over economic slowdown of world's biggesteconomy. Optimism that Federal Reserve will reduce interest rates by 25 basispoints by September and anticipations of fresh fiscal stimulus from Beijingalso boosted investor confidence. Nikkie gained the most among Asian indicesand marked its second largest daily gain for the year, as the earning prospectsof exporters got boosted by the plunge of the local currency yen. The robust Q2economic data of Japan overshadowed woes about BoJ's hawkish shift and easedfears of a massive carry unwind.