Market Opening: SENSEX rises 123 points, NIFTY50 at 24,690, tracking Asian peers; BEL, Eternal top gainers

The Indian stock market snapped its six-day losing streak and opened with marginal gains on Monday, September 29, amid positive cues from Asian peers. Investors now await the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) upcoming policy decision on the repo rate for fresh direction.

RBI's three-day Monetary Policy Committee meeting headed by Governor Sanjay Malhotra will begin on Monday amid ongoing geopolitical tensions and the US imposing 50% tariffs on Indian merchandise. The decision will be announced on Wednesday.

Across sectors, barring Nifty FMCG (-0.64%) and Nifty Private Bank (-0.03%), all indices traded in the green. Nifty Realty (0.82%), Nifty Metal (0.77%), and Nifty Oil & Gas (0.66%) led the gains.

The broader market also rose in the early session, with Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 climbing 0.55% and 0.53%, respectively.

According to exchange data, on Friday, the foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold equities worth ₹5,687.58 crore on a net basis, while the domestic institutional investors (DIIs) purchased ₹5,843.21 crore worth of equities.

Globally, in Asia, except for Japan, most of the indices were trading higher on Monday. Japan's Nikkei dropped 0.69%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng advanced 1.32%, South Korea's KOSPI rose 1.28%, and the Shanghai Composite was up 0.13%.

On Wall Street, the US indices ended higher on Friday as they snapped a three-day losing streak after a report showed that inflation is behaving roughly as economists expected, even if it’s still high, AP reported.

The Dow Jones rose 0.65%, the S&P 500 climbed 0.59%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.44%.

As many as 2,674 stocks traded on the NSE during the early session, among which 1,834 were trading in the green, 763 were trading in the red, and 77 shares remained unchanged.

This indicates that the market's breadth was favourable to advances.

Meanwhile, 44 stocks hit their one-year highs in the early trade, while 51 stocks touched their 52-week lows.

Further, 47 stocks also hit their lower circuits, while 37 stocks hit their upper circuits.

India VIX, the volatility gauge, was trading lower by 0.48% at 11.37 levels.

Bharat Electronics (BEL) was the biggest contributor on the 50-share index, gaining 2.22%, followed by Eternal (2.02%), Titan (1.07%), Tata Steel (1.07%) and JSW Steel (0.86%).

On the flip side, Hindustan Unilever (-2.38%), Axis Bank (-1.67%), Larsen & Toubro (-1.09%), Nestle India (-0.92%), and Tata Consumer Products (-0.58%) were the biggest losing stocks on the 50-share index.