Sensex up 300 points on crude price fall, rally in auto and metal stocks

• Indian benchmark indices opened in the green led by fall in crude oil prices and rally in metal and auto stocks.
• Oil prices dropped to $94 per barrel, as recession fears hurt its demand outlook and as data pointed to a slow recovery in China's crude imports in July.
• Auto stocks trended higher as the industry expects car sales to be strong this festive season.

Fall in crude oil prices and rally in automobile and metal stocks has lifted up investor sentiment at the start of the week – which were strong enough to negate weak cues from global markets.

Oil prices dropped to $94 per barrel, as recession fears hurt its demand outlook and as data pointed to a slow recovery in China's crude imports in July. Fall in oil prices is a positive sign for an importer like India.

Auto stocks trended higher as the industry expects car sales to be strong this festive season on the back of new launches and improved production. Festive season starts from August 11 with Raksha Bandhan and extends till Diwali in October.

Meanwhile, inflows by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) also kept the momentum high. August saw inflows of ₹14,000 crore as against ₹1,971 crore in July.

Markets might not witness too much action as tomorrow Tuesday, is a holiday for Muharram.
This week, investors will be keenly watching the inflation data to be released. It would give an indication of the future course of action of central banks.

The US CPI data to be released on Wednesday and India’s CPI and Industrial Production data to be released on Friday. Currently, US inflation is at a multi-decadal high and that of India has been above RBI’s tolerance band of 6%.

Global peers were trading lower as they fear an aggressive monetary policy by the US Fed after strong jobs data. Data showed US employers hired a strong 5.28 lakh jobs in July even more than 3.98 lakh jobs in June.

The strong job data is likely to encourage the US Fed to continue raising interest rates to cool the economy and tackle inflation.

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