Indian equity benchmarks rise in early trade as crude oil prices decline

Mumbai: Domestic equity benchmarks traded higher in early deals on Thursday after crude oil prices declined up to 1 per cent.

Sensex touched an intraday high of 82,057.39, up 0.38 per cent or 316 points in the morning trade. Nifty was up 0.34 per cent or 86 points at 25,342.

Earlier in the day, the headline indices had opened lower, tracking cautious sentiment across Asian markets.

Sector-wise, Nifty IT was the biggest drag, falling over 1 per cent. Nifty Auto and Nifty Healthcare also declined up to almost 1 per cent.

On the gainers' side, Nifty PSU Bank rose 0.23 per cent, Nifty Media was up 0.2 per cent and Nifty Consumer Durables added 0.14 per cent.

According to market experts, the Nifty rally of 9.55 per cent in seven trading sessions so far in November is being led primarily by aggressive buying by foreign institutional investors (FIIs).

"The tug of war between FIIs and domestic institutional investors (DIIs) till November saw FIIs on the sell side and DIIs on the buy side," they said.

Now the positions have been completely reversed, with FIIs turning aggressive buyers and DIIs turning consistent sellers. This FIIs vs DIIs position will set the market trend in the near term, the experts said.

However, FIIs have already invested Rs 65,735 crore in Indian equities so far in November.

"This trend is likely to continue and has the potential to reach an all-time high number. Impressive earnings growth as evidenced by good Q2 results and macro relief from lower crude prices will support the rally. DIIs may continue profit booking, putting brakes on the rally," the experts said.

Apart from that, an important data point to watch on Thursday will be the October CPI inflation number.

In commodities, Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, traded more than 1 per cent or $1 lower at $91.51 per barrel. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude also slipped nearly 1 per cent to $85.41 per barrel.

Asian markets traded mixed on Thursday as investors remained cautious amid fresh volatility in Nvidia, the chipmaker at the heart of this year's AI-driven rally.

Overnight, US markets closed higher on Wednesday as concerns over heavy artificial intelligence spending eased.