GDP reading, exit polls push Nifty to record high; Sensex jumps over 400 points

• Nifty hits record high after 51 trading sessions crossing earlier high of 20,222.45 hit on Sep 15, 2023.
• Market reads exit polls results indicating a high possibility of political stability.
• India's latest GDP reading beats RBI forecast indicating growth momentum.

Equity benchmark indices, the Nifty and the Sensex, continued their winning streak for the fourth day running on Friday, with the Nifty hitting a record high in early trade, driven by favourable macroeconomic data and continuous foreign fund inflows. The Nifty hit a record high after 51 trading sessions crossing earlier high of 20,222.45 hit on Sep 15, 2023.

The 30-share BSE Sensex jumped 308.52 points to 67,296.96 in early trade and at the time of publishing had risen over 420 points. The Nifty climbed 96.1 points to 20,229.25. Later, it touched a record high of 20,245.20 and is trading 125 points in the green as of 11:00 am.

Late evening exit polls have at large predicted a BJP advantage in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan while Congress is favourites to win Chhattisgarh and Telangana. Mizoram expects to see a tight fight between both the parties come the counting day.

"The exit polls results indicate a high possibility of political stability after the General elections. The market will appreciate this." said Dr VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

In macro data, Indian government data released yesterday India's economy grew 7.6% in the September quarter of this fiscal and remained the fastest-growing large economy, mainly due to better performance by manufacturing, mining and services sectors.

Commenting on the data, Hitesh Suvama of JM Financial said, "Robust GDP print indicates that transmission of rate hikes is incomplete: With every passing quarter it is becoming clearer that the impact of restrictive monetary conditions through transmission of cumulative rate hikes (till now) is yet to fully reflect in the economy. This also justifies the hawkish tone of central banks and negates the calls for rate cuts by certain section of the market. With Q2 FY24 GDP print, we expect RBI to maintain a hawkish tone and RBI may tinker its growth projections higher by ~20bps, but we do not expect any rate action on 8th Dec. We raise our growth forecast for FY24 by 20bps to 6.5%."

Among the Sensex firms, Larsen & Toubro, NTPC, Asian Paints, Maruti, Sun Pharma, ITC, IndusInd Bank and State Bank of India were the major gainers.

Wipro, HCL Tech, Infosys, Tech Mahindra, Titan and Mahindra & Mahindra were among the laggards.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) bought equities worth Rs 8,147.85 crore on Thursday, according to exchange data.

In Asian markets, Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong were quoting lower.

The US markets ended mostly with gains on Thursday.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude declined 0.32% to USD 82.83 a barrel.

The BSE benchmark ended 86.53 points or 0.13% higher at 66,988.44 on Thursday. The Nifty edged up 36.55 points or 0.18% to 20,133.15.

(With text input from PTI)