Indian equity indices staged a recovery from day's lows and ended with gains, buoyed by renewed buying interest in Oil & Gas, Energy and Metal stocks. Markets opened in the deep red, tracking negative cues in the global market as higher than expected inflation numbers in the U.S. hit investor sentiments. Traders took a note of Former Reserve Bank Governor C Rangarajan's statement that India needs to grow at seven to eight per cent annually in order to become a developed nation with $13000 per capita income by 2047. Asserting that innovation cannot be a single solution to reduce inequalities or poverty, he said besides faster growth rate, the country may need social safety nets such as subsidies in kind of cash and basic income. However, bulls rushed in to support the indices in late afternoon deals and helped to close with gains amid easing WPI inflation. Inflation based on wholesale price index (WPI) eased in the month of January 2024 to 0.27% from a nine-month high of 0.73% in December 2023, amid lower prices of crude petroleum & natural gas, non-food articles and food articles. The Component wise, primary articles index, declined 1.04% to 181.0 (provisional) in January 2024 from 182.9 (provisional) for the month of December 2023. Some support also came as Prime Minister Narendra Modi asserted that the country will emerge as the third largest economy in the world in coming years. Besides, foreign fund inflows aided sentiments. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) net bought shares worth Rs 376.32 crore on February 13, provisional data from the NSE showed. Finally, the BSE Sensex rose 267.64 points or 0.37% to 71,822.83 and the CNX Nifty was up by 96.80 points or 0.45% to 21,840.05.

The US markets ended higher on Wednesday with Nasdaq settling over 200 points. The rebound on markets partly reflected bargain hunting, with some traders seeing the sharp pullback on Tuesday as a buying opportunity amid ongoing optimism about the outlook for the markets. While yesterday's hotter-than expected inflation data further pushed back interest rate cut expectations, signs of continued strength in the economy is still expected to benefit the markets in the longer term. The Federal Reserve is also still likely to begin lower interest rates sometime in the coming months even if traders have to wait until June. On the sectoral front, Computer hardware stocks showed a strong move back to the upside on the day, with the NYSE Arca Computer Hardware Index soaring by 3.4 percent to a record closing high. Substantial strength also emerged among tobacco stocks, as reflected by the 3.3 percent spike by the NYSE Arca Tobacco Index. Semiconductor, networking and biotechnology stocks also saw considerable strength, contributing to the rebound by the tech-heavy Nasdaq. Among individual stocks, shares of Lyft (LYFT) skyrocketed by 35.1 after the ride-hailing company reported better than expected fourth quarter results and provided upbeat guidance. Investing platform Robinhood (HOOD) also spiked by 13.0 percent after reporting fourth quarter results that exceeded analyst estimates on both the top and bottom lines.

Crude oil futures ended lower on Wednesday as data showed a big increase in crude inventories in the U.S. in the week ended February 9th. Data from Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed crude inventories in the U.S. rose by 12 million barrels last week, nearly five times the expected increase. Gasoline stockpiles dropped by about 3.7 million barrels to 247.3 million barrels last week, while distillate stockpiles fell by 1.9 million barrels to 125.7 million barrels. The EIA data also showed that crude stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub rose by 710,000 barrels last week. Benchmark crude oil futures for March delivery fell $1.23 or about 1.6% to settle at $76.64 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude for April delivery dropped $1.17 or about 1.4% to $81.60 per barrel on London's Intercontinental Exchange.  

Indian rupee ended higher against the dollar on Wednesday tracking positive domestic equities. Traders got support with report that inflation based on wholesale price index (WPI) eased in the month of January 2024 to 0.27% from a nine-month high of 0.73% in December 2023, amid lower prices of crude petroleum & natural gas, non-food articles and food articles. The Component wise, primary articles index, declined 1.04% to 181.0 (provisional) in January 2024 from 182.9 (provisional) for the month of December 2023, on account of fall in prices of crude petroleum & natural gas, non-food articles and food articles. On the global front, dollar weakened against the yen on Wednesday after top Japanese currency officials warned against what they described as rapid and speculative yen moves, while sterling fell after data showed UK inflation did not accelerate in January as expected. Finally, the rupee ended at 83.03 (Provisional), stronger by 5 paise from its previous close of 83.08 on Tuesday.

The FIIs as per Wednesday's data were net buyers in both equity and debt segments. In equity segment, the gross buying was of Rs 13133.76 crore against gross selling of Rs 12900.15 crore, while in the debt segment, the gross purchase was of Rs 1965.50 crore with gross sales of Rs 1273.82 crore. Besides, in the hybrid segment, the gross buying was of Rs 49.29 crore against gross selling of Rs 32.55 crore.

The US markets ended higher on Wednesday as a buying opportunity amid ongoing optimism about the outlook for the markets. Asian markets are trading mostly in green in early deals on Thursday, following positive cues from the US markets, even as GDP numbers from Japan showed that Asia's second-largest economy had entered a technical recession. The domestic equity market staged a recovery from day's low and ended higher on Wednesday, buoyed by renewed buying interest in banking stocks. Today, markets are likely to make positive start amid firm global cues. Falling crude oil prices and U.S. Treasury yields are likely to support domestic sentiments.  Traders may get some encouragement as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data stated India's services trade surplus shot up to a record $44.9 billion in the October-December quarter (third quarter, or Q3) of 2023-24 (FY24), growing 16 per cent year-on-year, showing resilience amid strong global headwinds. This is likely to reduce the current account deficit (CAD) in Q3. Meanwhile, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is scheduled to review the state of the economy amid global challenges at a meeting of the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) on February 21. This would be the first meeting of the FSDC after the passage of the Rs 47.6 lakh crore Budget for 2024-25, focussing on capital expenditure with an outlay of Rs 11.11 lakh crore. There may be some buzz in steel industry related stocks as the government said Selected companies have invested about Rs 12,900 crore in the domestic steel sector under the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for specialty steel till December and another Rs 3,000 crore is expected during the current financial year (FY24). There will be some buzz in Defence industry related stocks as procurement of goods and services by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) through public buying platform GeM has crossed Rs 1 lakh crore, with about half of it coming in the current financial year. The Government e-Market (GeM) portal was launched on August 9, 2016, for online purchases of goods and services by all central government ministries and departments.

Support and Resistance: NSE (Nifty) and BSE (Sensex)

Nifty Top volumes

• Tata Consultancy Services and Conga have forged a strategic partnership to offer more customized and state-of-the-art solutions to enterprises.
•  UPL has incorporated new step-down subsidiary viz. Advanta Seeds Tanzania, to carry out seeds and related business.
•  Wipro has made a significant investment in Aggne, a leading consulting and managed services company serving insurance and Insurtech industries.
•  M&M has reported 0.57% fall in consolidated net profit at Rs 2977.04 crore for Q3FY24 as compared to Rs 2994.03 crore for the same quarter in the previous year.