Indices start May F&O series on a flat note; Wipro top Sensex gainer

Domestic equities started the May F&O series on a flat note with a positive bias. The S&P BSE Sensex traded over 50 points or 0.08 per cent higher at 60,700.53 levels in the early deals on April 28 while the NSE's Nifty quoted at 17,925.65, up 0.059 per cent.

Wipro (up over 2 per cent) was the top gainer on the Sensex, followed by Bharti Airtel and L&T. On the other hand, Bajaj Finserv (down 2 per cent) was the biggest laggard. 

The second-rung stocks were faring better than the large caps. The S&P BSE MidCap index was trading 0.43 per cent higher at 25,268.18 levels while the S&P BSE SmallCap index was up over half a per cent at 28,806.71 points. PI Industries (up over 8 per cent) was the top gainer on the mid-cap index while Aarti Surfactants (up over 12 per cent) was the top gainer on the small-cap pack.

"There is global support for the ongoing rally in the Indian market. The mother market, the US, is doing well supported by better-than-expected earnings from Big Tech companies. The latest GDP numbers from the US indicate a strong but slowing economy. Markets are now discounting a 25 bp rate hike by the Fed next week and then a pause. This will be favourable for the market in the short term," notes Dr V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services. 

Since the Nifty has moved up by 5 per cent in the April series, some profit bookings can happen in the near term. An important sectoral trend in the market is that while large-cap IT has been performing poorly, mid-cap is doing well and some of them have given optimistic guidance for FY24. Stay invested in mid-cap IT. Long-term investors can utilise weakness in large-cap IT to accumulate these stocks. Banking stocks will remain resilient, Vijayakumar adds.

SECTOR WATCH

The beaten-down sector, IT, was among the top gainers in the early trade. Telecom stocks, commodities, and metals, too, traded with decent gains.

GLOBAL MARKETS

In the overnight trade, the tech-heavy Nasdaq led a Wall Street rally on Thursday as a strong quarterly report from Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc overshadowed concerns over slowing US economic growth. In Asia, too, stocks surged in the early morning deals ahead of the Bank of Japan's policy decision.