Opening Bell: Sensex surges by 122 points, Nifty starts above 17,400 ahead of RBI MPC decision today – IT, Metal gain

The Indian markets started Friday’s session in the green ahead of the Reserve Bank of India’s monetary policy decision today. Sensex gained over 122 points, while Nifty50 opened above the 17400 levels, aided by IT and metal stocks today.

At the market open, the BSE Sensex gained by 122.24 points or 0.21 per cent to 58421, and Nifty50 surged almost 42 points or 24 per cent to 17423.7 levels. The broader markets followed the benchmarks suit to open positive as Nifty midcap and smallcap gained 0.21 and 0.48 respectively.

As many as 35 stocks advanced and 15 declined on Nifty50 in the early morning trade. Mahindra and Mahindra surged most by over 1.3 per cent, followed by Divis Lab nearly up 1 per cent at the open. While Bharti Airtel, Infosys, and IndusInd Bank each up between 0.5-1 per cent on Friday.

On the contrary, Reliance Industries became the top Nifty laggard in the early morning trade, down by almost 1 per cent, followed by Apollo Hospital, Hero MotoCorp, Cipla, and Maruti each declined marginally minutes after the market open of Friday.

In the early trade, all sectoral indices are in the green, with IT and Metals leading the maximum surge in the market up 0.7 and 0.6 per cent respectively. 

The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) may raise the key interest rates in the range of 35 to 50 basis points (bps) with less hawkish commentary during the August bi-monthly policy, scheduled between August 3 and 5, 2022, most of the analysts estimated.

Analysts see a rate hike in the upcoming policy meet only because of higher inflation numbers. June marked the sixth straight month when inflation came at 7.01 per cent higher than the upper tolerance level of RBI.