Markets maintain buoyancy for the 9th consecutive day, with Banking pack leading the recovery but IT stocks drifting low

Markets reacted to innumerable news flows on Thursday with the Nifty opening tad lower in reaction to Wednesday post-market-hours data flow, on macro-economic statistics and India’s largest IT services player TCS announcing fourth quarter results. While inflation print for both US and India were better than expected, TCS disappointed the street with negative commentary on challenges in the North American markets which are expected to linger in the near term hinting at an uncertain outlook for FY24.

Alongside, FOMC latest meeting minutes prompted towards a recession this year owing to the ongoing banking crisis. “Given their assessment of the potential economic effects of the recent banking-sector developments, the staff’s projection at the time of the March meeting included a mild recession starting later this year, with a recovery over the subsequent two years,” the meeting summary said.

Nifty traded lower until noon and marked the low point of the day at 17,731. Post which, the index leaped nearly 100 points in remaining half of the session in response to AMFI’s strong mutual funds data for March and SIAM’s auto sales numbers for March and financial year 2023. Though Nifty ended the day tad higher with modest 15 points gain, it marked the ninth consecutive day of rise. The last instance of the Nifty ending higher was from 30^th September to 14^th October 2020 for ten sessions. The Nifty today touched a 7-week high.