Indian equity benchmark -- Nifty -- ended Tuesday’s trading session in positive terrain with marginal gains, as investors waited for looming U.S. inflation figures. After making cautious start, soon index altered between red and green, as some cautiousness came after a report by SBI Research, released just days before the government is set to publish the official data, stated that the Indian economy is expected to grow at 7.0-7.1 per cent in the April-June period, the first quarter of 2024-25. This growth forecast comes with a downward bias. Traders were also concerned with a private report stating that the newly-announced Unified Pension Scheme (UPS) is expected to shoot up the fiscal deficit by 15 basis points (bps) to 5.1 per cent from the budgeted 4.9 per cent in the financial year 2025 (FY25).
However, index managed to trade in green in noon deals, as traders took some support with Crisil Ratings’ report stating that small finance banks (SFBs) are expected to grow their loan book by a robust 25-27 per cent this fiscal year (FY25). It stated that growth will be sustained by segmental and geographic expansion supported by a robust and growing presence in semi-urban and rural markets with significant unmet demand. In last leg of trade, index trimmed most of its gains to end near neutral line.
Traders were seen piling up positions in Media, Financial Services and Pharma stocks, while selling was witnessed in FMCG, Consumer Durables, and Metal. The top gainers from the F&O segment were REC, Power Finance Corporation and Indian Energy Exchange. On the other hand, the top losers Syngene International, Cummins India and Marico. In the index option segment, maximum OI continues to be seen in the 25900 - 26100 calls and 24900 - 25100 puts indicating this is the trading range expectation.
