Nifty ends higher amid buying across sectors

MUMBAI: The Nifty ended higher on Thursday, recovering from the worst selloff in the previous session amid buying across sectors.

At close on Thursday, Nifty was up 0.68 per cent or 148.9 points at 22146.65.

The cash market volumes on the NSE were high at Rs 1.15 lakh crore. The broad market indices rose more than the Nifty even as the advance-decline ratio rose sharply to 4.02:1 – the best since October 27, 2023, said Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research, HDFC Securities.

Global ratings agency Fitch Ratings, meanwhile, raised India's FY25 GDP growth forecast to 7 per cent from 6.5 per cent earlier, as it expects the economy to continue its strong expansion.

Fitch expects a 50 bps rate cut by the Reserve Bank of India from July to December, and foresees India's CPI inflation gradually declining to 4 per cent by the end of 2024.

India's wholesale prices accelerated at their slowest pace since October 2023. The Wholesale Price Index rose by 0.20 per cent during February, compared to 0.27 per cent in January, Jasani said.

After the knee-jerk reaction to the previous session’s brutal selloff, Nifty could now return to normalcy, and stay in the 21,918-22,325 band for the near term, he said.

Vaibhav Vidwani, Research Analyst, Bonanza Portfolio, said the FTSE index restructure, which takes effect on March 15, is anticipated to cause passive inflows of over $1.7 billion, the majority of which would go into the BFSI firms, including HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, and Sundaram Finance.

A few further changes, such as those to the BSE Sensex and Bharat 22 indexes, will also take effect from the upcoming session. In a market like this, when investors are adopting a cautious stance due to volatility, these variables have the potential to bring optimism in the BFSI.