Opening Bell: Nifty near 16000, Sensex up nearly 500 points; auto, metal stocks shine

Tracking Asian peers, the Indian market opened on a positive note on the last trading session of the week on Friday even as retail inflation jumped to an 8-year high of 7.79% in April. Benchmarks Nifty50 and the Sensex gained 1% in the opening trade as the former started near the 16,000-mark, while the latter gained more than 500 points. Headline indices opened at 15,977.00 and 53,565.74 respectively on Friday.  

In the broader market, Nifty midcap and small cap outperformed the benchmarks as they rose more than 2% in the early trade.  

All sectors sat in the green, but strong buying interest was seen in auto, metal, PSU Bank and Realty stocks. 

"This is the season of headwinds for markets. High inflation in the US and the hawkish Fed has pushed up bond yields, negatively impacting equity markets. Global economic uncertainty and market turbulence have triggered safe haven dollar buying, pushing the dollar index to 104.8. In this backdrop FPIs continue their selling spree further impacting sentiments,"V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

To top it all, CPI inflation for April has come at a disturbingly high level of 7.79 leaving no option for RBI, but to turn hawkish in the coming policy meets, he said.

"The positive side is that all this bad news is already known and factored-in by the market. Since the market is oversold, a bounce back can be expected but the texture of the market remains weak. For long-term investors, high quality financials and IT provide investment opportunities," he added.

In the pre-open, the Sensex opened around 600 points or more than 1% higher, as except Dr Reddy's, all other stocks gained on the 30-share index.  

Earlier, SGX Nifty too hinted at a positive opening for the Indian market as the futures index on the Singaporean exchange rose nearly 200 points, minutes before opening of the Indian market. 

Meanwhile, Asian markets rose in the early trade as Japanese Nikkei 225 was up over 2%, Hang Seng Index at the Hong Kong Exchange gained more than 1.5% and Shanghai Composite over half per cent on Friday morning.