By Malvika Gurung
Investing.com -- Indian equity benchmark indices made a marginally higher to almost flat opening on Thursday despite a fall in Asian peer stocks ahead of the RBI Monetary Policy Committee’s (MPC) rate decision, set to release at 10 am today.
At 9:40 am, headline indices Nifty traded flat at 18,743.75 levels and Sensex advanced 0.1% or 64.23 points. The volatility barometer India VIX declined 1% to 11.33 levels while writing.
As per Investing.com’s forecast, RBI MPC is expected to leave the report rate unchanged at 6.5% for the second consecutive time in the June policy meet.
Sectoral indices under the Nifty umbrella traded mixed, with Nifty Metal leading the gains, while Nifty IT declined the most. Nifty Bank traded flat.
On the Nifty50 pack, NTPC (NS:NTPC), JSW Steel (NS:JSTL), Adani Enterprises (NS:ADEL), Hero MotoCorp (NS:HROM) and PowerGrid Corporation (NS:PGRD) led the gains, while Kotak Bank, Bharat Petroleum (NS:BPCL) and Eicher Motors (NS:EICH) exerted pressure.
In a note provided to Investing.com, Dr V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, stated that the important cue to watch would be the RBI commentary today since the rate decision will be a pause.
He added that if the RBI commentary marginally increases the FY24 GDP growth rate and decreases the FY24 inflation target, that would be a shot in the arm for the bulls enabling them to take Nifty to new records.