Indian stocks rise Friday; investors eye RBI meet for fresh cues

NEW DELHI: Indian stocks jumped sharply Friday morning in line with strength in overnight US markets.

Stock markets were shut on Thursday on account of Ram Navami.

At the time of writing this report, benchmark indices Sensex and nifty were sharply 1 per cent higher each.

"US stock indexes finished sharply higher on Wednesday, helped by a rally in technology shares and easing concerns about stress in the banking sector. Appetite for risk was evident on Wednesday as investors were more relaxed about the health of the bank sector and the prospects for the path of interest rates," said Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research, HDFC securities.

The fears of further banking sector crisis in the US seemed to have dissipated after the recently failed Silicon Valley Bank's loans and deposits were successfully sold to First Citizens Bank. SVB collapsed on March 10 after a run on the bank by depositors, forcing regulators to take control of it.

For fresh cues, the next RBI monetary policy meeting, scheduled to be held in the first week of April 2023, will be closely watched.

At the latest Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the RBI in early February, it decided to raise the repo rate by 25 basis points to 6.5 per cent to manage inflation. Raising interest rates is a monetary policy instrument that typically helps suppress demand in the economy, thereby helping the inflation rate decline.

According to SBI Research's latest Ecowrap report, the RBI is expected to pause its interest rate hike and the current 6.5 per cent repo rate could be the terminal rate for now.

The report asserted that the RBI has enough reasons to pause the repo rate hike in the April meeting.