Trade deal hopes with US lent support to Indian stocks; Sensex rises after 3-day slump

NEW DELHI: Snapping three-day losses, Indian stock benchmarks settled in the green on Wednesday, on hopes that the India-US trade deal is on the anvil as was indicated by Trump’s commerce secretary.

Firm US stock indices also lent support to Indian stock benchmarks. The Sensex is now some 5,000 points below its all-time high of 85,978 points. At one time, it had fallen about 13,000 points from its high. FPI buying has supported the indices of late.

Most of the sectoral indices were in the green today, with Nifty metal and Nifty oil and gas rising the most.

Global gold prices were also in the green today. At the time of filing this report, per ounce gold was quoted at USD 3,384, up 0.2 per cent. Going ahead, investors now await further updates on India-US trade deal negotiations and the RBI monetary policy outcome on Friday.

“The strong fundamental factors that will support the market are India’s robust and improving macros and sustained flows into mutual funds, particularly the SIP inflows which are steady and growing. This reflects the coming of age of the Indian retail investor,” said VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Investments Limited.

“An important takeaway from the Q4 results is the outperformance of the midcaps relative to largecaps and smallcaps,” Vijayakumar added. “Since CPI inflation in India is benign the rate cutting cycle has more room to go with minimum two more rate cuts in 2025.”

Another good news for the financial markets is that foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) have turned net sellers in Indian stock markets for the second straight month in May. FPIs had fuelled the latest bull run in the stock market, after a sharp slump.

Indian stock markets outperformed global markets over the past few weeks, as volatility continued to reign in global markets over possible forthcoming US reciprocal tariffs. A comfortable inflation number in India also somewhat supported the domestic equity indices.

In 2024, Sensex and Nifty accumulated a growth of about 9-10 per cent each. In 2023, Sensex and Nifty gained 16-17 per cent, on a cumulative basis. In 2022, they gained a mere 3 per cent each. (ANI)