Shares ended mostly higher in Asia post the reopening of Chinese markets on Monday from long Lunar New Year holiday. Despite volatility in the global equity markets, Indian equities exhibited resilience. Experts believe that Indian indices were helped by positive and favourable investor sentiments and sector positioning.
On 20th February 2024, Indian benchmarks extended gains, with both Nifty and Sensex ending in green. The Nifty index ended at ~22,122.25 levels, exhibiting a rise of ~81.55 points or 0.37%, while Sensex closed at ~72,708.16 levels, marking a healthy rise of ~281.52 points or 0.39%.
Well, we can say that Indian markets have shown their healthy performance as Monday’s increase mark the 5th consecutive day of increases. Thus, both the frontline indices continue to scale their fresh lifetime highs.
Why Indian benchmarks extended gains?
Though most of the sectors ended higher, gains which were primarily seen in financial and FMCG shares supported much of the increase. Therefore, 17 Sensex shares ended higher, with 13 stocks closing in red. After a healthy start, index touched a high of ~72,881.93 in its day trade.
Coming to Nifty’s performance, the barometer touched its intra-day record high of ~22,186.65, supported by gains in pharmaceutical, banking and oil stocks. Within this, ~27 Nifty shares saw gains and 23 shares ended lower.
Overall market cap of the shares listed on BSE went up to ~INR 391.69 lakh crore or $4.72 trillion, with investors becoming richer by ~INR 2.20 lakh crore.
Among the 30-issue barometer, Bajaj Finserve, ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel, and Nestle have been categorised as lead gainers, while L&T Wipro and IndusInd Bank were the lead decliners.
Earnings season remains in full swing
Now, since earnings season remains in full swing, experts believe that benign input costs and anticipations of recovery in rural demand should support corporate earnings growth. On Friday, Foreign Portfolio Investors were net buyers, with the pack buying securities to the tune of INR 253.28 crore, as per the filings available with the exchange.
Elsewhere in the Asian markets, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng saw a fall of ~0.8% to touch ~16,212.05 levels as a result of heavy selling of tech and property shares. This decline was seen even after slew of announcements by state banks of China. They have plans for billions of dollars’ worth of loans focused on property projects. Shanghai Composite index saw an increase of ~1.4% to ~2,906.39.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 saw a rise of ~0.1% to reach 7,665.10 and Kospi in Seoul went up by ~1.2%, to ~2,680.26.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell saw a marginal fall, with the index declining less than 0.1% to ~38,470.38.
Coming to the European markets, The Stoxx Europe 600 changed marginally after the prior week’s increase of 1.4%.
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