Markets Rebound in Early Trade After Five Days of Slump

In early trading on Friday, Sensex and Nifty rebounded due to increased buying at lower levels and strong performance by major blue-chip companies. despite foreign institutional investors offloading equities and mixed global market signals, including lower US markets and varying Asian trends, Indian indices showed positive movement.

Mumbai: Equity market benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty rebounded in early trade on Friday after staying on the back foot for the past five straight sessions, helped by value buying at lower levels and rally in blue-chips Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services and Reliance Industries.

The 30-share BSE Sensex climbed 235.23 points to 80,275.03 in early trade. The NSE Nifty went up 86.6 points to 24,492.70. From the Sensex pack, Bharti Airtel, Tata Steel, Infosys, JSW Steel, Bajaj Finance, HCL Technologies, Tata Consultancy Services and Reliance Industries were the biggest gainers.

Tech Mahindra, HDFC Bank, Nestle and Maruti were among the laggards. The unique feature of the bull market in India is its ability to climb all walls of worry. The market dismissed all concerns relating to elections, the Budget and the correction in the mother market US. The buy-dips strategy which has played out well in this rally continues to hold good, said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services

In Asian markets, Seoul, Tokyo, and Hong Kong were trading higher while Shanghai quoted lower. The US markets ended mostly lower on Thursday. Global oil benchmark Brent crude climbed 0.19 per cent to USD 82.53 a barrel. Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 2,605.49 crore on Thursday, according to exchange data.

"The US economy's 2.8 per cent growth in Q2 confirms it won't slip into recession, and we expect the Federal Reserve to start cutting interest rates by September due to easing inflation," Prashanth Tapse, Senior VP (Research), Mehta Equities Ltd, said.

After a sharp fall in intra-day trade on Thursday, the BSE benchmark managed to recover some of the lost ground to settle 109.08 points or 0.14 per cent lower at 80,039.80. The NSE Nifty dipped 7.40 points or 0.03 per cent to 24,406.10. In five days, the BSE benchmark Sensex tumbled 1,303.66 points or 1.60 per cent, while the Nifty declined 394.75 points or 1.59 per cent.