Stock Market Reacted Positively Due to RBI's Rate Cut Hopes

Sensex rallied nearly 465 points after cooling retail inflation raised RBI rate cut hopes, leading to intense buying in rate-sensitive stocks, and strong global cues supported investors sentiment.

Private sector lender Yes Bank emerged as the top gainer with 3.86 per cent climb, followed by Infosys 3.66 per cent, Vedanta 3.03 per cent, Reliance 3.02 per cent and TCS 2.74 per cent, on the Sensex chart.

The 30-share index settled 464.77 points, or 1.30 per cent, higher at 36,318.33, while the broader NSE Nifty rallied 149.20 points, or 1.39 per cent, to finish at 10,886.80.

Market sentiment remained upbeat over retail inflation dropping to an 18-month low of 2.19 per cent in December, creating headroom for the Reserve Bank to ease monetary policy next month.

Another set of official data showed that the wholesale inflation too eased to an eight-month low of 3.80 per cent in December.

In the Sensex pack, other gainers were Bajaj Finance, Bharti Airtel, Tata Motors, Hero MotoCorp, HUL, Asian Paints, HDFC duo and ONGC — gaining as much as 2.87 per cent.

Bucking the overall trend, Maruti, PowerGrid and ICICI Bank ended in the red.

On a net basis, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth Rs 732.46 crore Monday, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) were net buyers to the tune of Rs 527.49 crore, provisional data available with BSE showed.

“Domestic market was buoyed by broad-based buying across all sectors and particularly led by rate sensitive sectors on the of a probable rate cut considering that Index of Industrial Production for the month of November slumped to mere 0.5 per cent while CPI inflation eased for a 6th straight month to 2.19 per cent in December,” Paras Bothra, President, Equity Research, Ashika Group, said.

Besides, positive cues from European and other Asian markets lifted sentiments.

Elsewhere in Asia, Korea’s Kospi jumped 1.58 per cent, Shanghai Composite Index rose 1.36 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rallied 2.02 per cent, and Japan’s Nikkei gained 0.96 per cent.

In Europe, Frankfurt’s DAX was up 0.41 per cent, Paris CAC 40 rose 0.56 per cent, and London’s FTSE gained 0.33 per cent.

The rupee, meanwhile, depreciated 20 paise against the US dollar to 71.12.

The benchmark Brent crude futures rose 0.78 per cent to $59.45 per barrel.