Optimism Sways The Market Mood

All sectoral indices, with the exception of BSE Power, managed to report gains over the last fortnight, reflecting optimism on the sectoral front as well.

With optimism brought on by the quarter earnings’ season, the Indian benchmark indices continued to climb and set new all-time highs in back-to-back trading sessions. As a result, the BSE Sensex and Nifty 50 have surged 2.15 and 2.14 per cent, respectively, in the last two weeks. The rally was supported by broader indices as well, with the BSE Small-Cap index significantly outperforming the main indices with gains of more than 3 per cent while the BSE Mid-Cap index gained by 1.89 per cent. All sectoral indices, with the exception of BSE Power, managed to report gains over the last fortnight, reflecting optimism on the sectoral front as well.

Among the power stocks, shares of JSW Energy took the brunt of the damage as the company’s consolidated net profit for the three months ending in June tumbled around 48 per cent year-on-year. Tata Power and Power Grid Corporation of India also experienced significant declines. With gains of 2.89 per cent, BSE Healthcare emerged as the bestperforming sector, boosted by gains from a number of pharmaceutical and healthcare stocks as companies reported robust quarter performances.

The majority of banks, including IndusInd Bank, Canara Bank, IDBI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and ICICI Bank, reported a healthy growth in net profit as the quality of their assets significantly improved. Unexpectedly, BSE Metals, which gained 2.25 per cent over the past two weeks, was also one of the best-performing sectors, despite major players in the metals and mining industries such as Tata Steel, Vedanta and Hindustan Zinc posting disappointing Quarterly Results. Following the merger of HDFC and HDFC Bank, JSW Steel replaced HDFC on the BSE Sensex. 

In the April-June quarter of 2023-24, India’s coal production climbed by 8.55 per cent to 223.36 million tonnes over the previous year. The BSE Information Technology index, which had soared more than 5 per cent over the fortnight, almost completely erased its gains in the last session, which was heavily affected by substantial losses at Infosys. The shares of Infosys plunged more than 8 per cent after the company’s results fell short of market expectations and its revised FY24 revenue growth outlook has been lowered from 4-7 per cent to 1-3.5 per cent.

According to data issued by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, India’s industrial output shot up by 5.2 per cent in May, while the country’s headline retail inflation rate ended a four-month decline and surged to 4.81 per cent in June from 4.31 per cent in May. While FIIs were net buyers over the past two weeks, DIIs have turned to being net sellers. The DII outflow was recorded at ₹3,541.34 crore whereas the FII inflow was recorded at ₹10,144.22 crore in the past 15 days.