Indices rise amid positive global cues; NIFTY50 above 24,500, SENSEX up 155 points; Apollo Hospitals jumps over 5%

The Indian stock market opened higher on Wednesday, August 13, following global cues and a rally in the metal sector. Investor confidence was also boosted following the July retail inflation data.

Falling food prices and a favourable base effect reduced India’s retail inflation to 1.55% in July, its lowest since June 2017, government data showed on Tuesday. This marks the ninth straight month that inflation has fallen.

The broader market was, however, outperforming the main equity benchmark indices in the early session. Both the Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 gained 0.57% and 0.45%, respectively.

Among sectors, Nifty Metal (1.19%) took the lead, followed by Nifty Realty (0.68%) and Nifty Auto (0.40%).

Meanwhile, Paytm parent One97 Communications shares zoomed over 5% and hit its 52-week high of ₹1,186.40 apiece after its wholly owned subsidiary Paytm Payments Services Limited (PPSL) received the Reserve Bank of India's approval to operate as an online payment aggregator.

According to exchange data, on Tuesday, the foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold equities worth ₹3,398.80 crore on a net basis, while the domestic institutional investors (DIIs) purchased ₹3,507.93 crore worth of equities.

Globally, following the rally of the US market, Asian stocks jumped on Wednesday amid a broad-based buying. Japan’s main indices topped the 43,000 mark for the first time.

Japan's Nikkei soared 0.146% to the 43,342 level, while South Korea's KOSPI was up 0.65%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng surged 1.66%, and the Shanghai Composite traded 0.56% higher.

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq settled at record closing highs on Tuesday, after US July inflation rose broadly in line with expectations, bolstering bets on a Federal Reserve interest rate cut in September.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 483.52 points, or 1.10%, to end at 44,458.61; the S&P 500 surged 72.31 points, or 1.13%, to close at 6,445.76; and the Nasdaq Composite gained 296.50 points, or 1.39%, to settle at 21,681.90.

As many as 2,495 stocks traded on the NSE during the early session, among which 1,129 were trading in the green, 785 were trading in the red, and 81 shares remained unchanged.

This indicates that the market breadth was advanced.

Meanwhile, 27 stocks hit their one-year highs in the early trade, while only 20 stocks touched their 52-week lows.

Further, 41 stocks hit their upper circuits, while 19 hit their lower circuits.

India VIX, the volatility gauge, was trading 0.51% up at 12.30 levels.

Apollo Hospitals was the biggest contributor, soaring 5.33%. Hindalco Industries (2.93%), Bharat Electronics (1.51%), Tata Motors (1.22%) and Eternal (1.05%) were the other top gainers.

On the contrary, Maruti Suzuki (-0.61%), Wipro (-0.53%), IndusInd Bank (-0.52%), Tech Mahindra (-0.46%) and HCL Technologies (-0.39%) were the biggest losing stocks on the 50-share index.