Opening Bell: Nifty opens near 16,300, Sensex up 400 points; auto stocks shine

Tracking its Asian peers and strong overnight closing by the US market, the Indian market opened on a positive note on Friday. Amid improved sentiment, the benchmarks gained more than half per cent in the opening trade. The broader Nifty50 opened near 16,300 and the Sensex rose by nearly 400 points as they opened at 16,273.65 and 54,574.43 respectively.  

In line with the benchmark indices, Nifty Midcap and Smallcap too traded with nearly half per cent gain.  

On the sectoral front, all indices opened in the green with auto gaining the most.  

"The recovery in Nifty and Nifty Midcap by 6% and 10%  respectively from their recent lows indicates the resilience of the markets and its potential to scale newer heights under a favorable macro construct," said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

He was of the view that the present rally is driven partly by expectations that given the steady decline in commodity prices inflation will start showing a declining trend enabling central banks to go a bit slow on hiking rates, and partly by short covering. "It is quite probable that central banks may not tighten policy as much as the market feared earlier. If emerging data indicates the possibility of a soft landing for the US economy, the rally may gather momentum. Therefore, commodity prices have to be closely watched," the expert added.

In the pre-opening, the Sensex gained nearly 400 points or surged higher by 0.7% as 25 stocks advanced and five declined on the 30-share index.  

Earlier, hinting at a strong opening, SGX Nifty was trading higher by more than 125 points in the early trade on the Singaporean exchange around 8 am on Friday.  

Similarly, Japanese Nikkei 225 gained more than 1.3%, Hang Seng Index at the Hong Kong exchange rose by more than 0.7% and Chinese Shanghai Composite traded higher by 0.2% around the same time.  

The US markets ended strongly near the day's highs on Thursday too. The US equity benchmarks Dow Jones gained 1.12%, Nasdaq closed higher by 2.28% and S&P 500 rose 1.5% in Thursday's closings.