By Rama Venkat
BENGALURU (Reuters) -Indian shares advanced on Wednesday, as a fall in global oil prices boosted sentiment ahead of domestic retail inflation data and IT major Wipro’s earnings report later in the day.
The NSE Nifty 50 index rose 0.22% to 17,020.20 as of 0450 GMT, while the S&P BSE Sensex was up 0.26% to 57,297.53. If gains hold, both indexes were set to snap a three-session losing streak.
Oil prices fell for a third straight session, with investors concerned about a hit to fuel demand amidst fears of a global recession and tightening of COVID-19 curbs in China. [O/R]
India, the world’s third-biggest importer and consumer of oil, benefits from a fall in crude prices as it brings down imported inflation.
The country’s retail inflation likely accelerated to a five-month high of 7.30% in September due to surging food prices, data due after the close is expected to show.
“The domestic market is resilient because when it comes to inflation, the situation here is not that grim and it is expected to moderate,” said Saurabh Jain, assistant vice-president of research at SMC Global Securities.
“Another positive cue is that a good amount of equities sold by foreign investors on Tuesday was absorbed by the domestic investors.”
Foreign institutional investors sold net 46.13 billion Indian rupees ($561 million) worth of equities on Tuesday, while domestic investors bought net 24.31 billion rupees worth, as per provisional data available with the National Stock Exchange.
IT stocks were among the top gainers, recovering from a fall on Tuesday. The Nifty’s IT index rose 0.53%, with Wipro Ltd and HCL Technologies Ltd up 0.3% and 2.3%, respectively, ahead of their quarterly earnings reports later in the day.
HCL and Power Grid Corp of India, up 3.2%, were the top performers on the Nifty 50 index.
The Nifty’s energy and public sector bank index also advanced 0.77% and 0.89%, respectively.
Asian stocks were at two-year lows, driven by volatility on Wall Street, a stronger dollar, and instability in the U.K. bond market. [MKTS/GLOB]
(Reporting by Rama Venkat in Bengaluru; Editing by Neha Arora)
