India Shares Hit Four-Month High, Banks and Tech Lead

A man looks at a board displaying stock indexes outside the Bombay Stock Exchange in the city in Mumbai. Photo: Reuters

Indian shares hit four-month highs on Thursday, led by surges in banking and tech stocks, as lower than expected US inflation eased fears of further Federal Reserve rate rises.

The NSE Nifty 50 Index climbed 0.8% to 17,681.05 by 0449 GMT, while the S&P BSE Sensex was up 0.9%, reaching 59,371.43.

“The optimism came on the back of a US consumer inflation rate that eased in July after hitting the peak a month before, raising hopes that the Fed will slow down the pace of interest rate hike,” Prashanth Tapse, a research analyst at Mehta Equities, said.

Nifty’s IT index was up 1.5% after the tech-heavy Nasdaq closed 2.9% higher. IT service providers Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro gained between 1% and 2%.

Nifty’s public sector bank index snapped a five-day losing run and climbed nearly 3%. Top lender State Bank of India’s 1.6% gain, was among the drivers of Nifty index rally.

Among others, airline companies InterGlobe Aviation and SpiceJet rose as much as 2.3% and 6.9%, respectively.

India’s civil aviation ministry on Wednesday announced removal of fare caps it imposed on domestic airlines during the Covid-19 pandemic from the end of August.

State-run coal miner Coal India added as much as 3.2% after it reported an over two-fold increase in quarterly profit.

Reuters, with additional editing from Alfie Habershon

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Alfie Habershon

Alfie is a Reporter at Asia Financial. He previously lived in Mumbai reporting on India's economy and healthcare for data journalism initiative IndiaSpend, as well as having worked for London based Tortoise Media.