Indian stock indices start fresh week with marginal losses

NEW DELHI: Indian stock indices fell marginally in early trade on Monday tracking weak cues from US markets, which apparently declined due to persistently high inflation in the country and the subsequent monetary policy tightening.

At 9.48 am, Sensex traded at 57,783.06 points, down 136.91 points or 0.24 per cent, whereas Nifty traded at 17,144.35 points, down 41.35 points or 0.24 per cent.

"Stocks turned lower after a closely-watched survey showed consumer inflation expectations were on the rise, while investors also weighed results from big Wall Street banks as earnings reporting season gets underway. For the week, the Dow rose 1.2%, while the S&P 500 fell 1.6% and the Nasdaq dropped 3.1%," HDFC Securities remarked about the US markets.

For the record, the US annual inflation rate slowed for the third consecutive month to 8.2 per cent in September 2022, which is the lowest in seven months, as compared to 8.3 per cent in August.

V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services said any rally in Indian stocks won't sustain due to a lack of positive fundamentals.

"Rallies triggered by market positioning will be temporary because there won't be any follow-on fundamental support for the rally. This trend played out in the US market last Friday with sharp cuts in major indices," Vijayakumar said.

"There are no major triggers to take the mother market much higher at least in the near term. There are no major triggers for a crash also since almost all negative factors are known to the market. Such an uncertain scenario provides opportunities for long-term investors to slowly accumulate high quality stocks showing improving prospects."

Coming to inflation in India, the wholesale price index-based inflation eased to 10.7 per cent in September as against 12.41 per cent recorded in the previous month, as per the government data released on Friday.

Despite the decline, Whole Price Index (WPI) based inflation has remained in double digits for the 18th month in a row. India's retail inflation remained above the Reserve Bank of India's mandated range of 2-6 per cent for the third quarter. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) based inflation rose to 7.41 per cent in September from 7 per cent in the previous month.