Indian equity indices were trading on a muted note after opening lower as the US President Donald Trump passed an executive order to raise fees on new H-1B visa applications. The country has increased the fees to $100k from $1500. The NSE Nifty 50 opened 71 points or 0.28% lower at 25,256. The BSE Sensex opened 277 points or 0.34% lower at 82,350.
The Bank Nifty opened 12 points or 0.02% higher at 55,470. However, the small and midcap stocks opened the day lower. The Nifty Midcap fell 142 points or 0.24% to open at 58,952.
“The market is likely to witness a dualistic behaviour today, with the list of IT sector stocks getting impacted by the H1B visa issue and the domestic consumption themes responding to the potential big boost to consumption coming from the lower GST rates kicking in from today. This festival season is likely to witness one of the best consumption booms in recent times. The Indian stock market’s huge underperformance during the last year, compared to most markets of the world, is likely to end soon. But a runaway rally is unlikely since high valuations continue to be a concern,” said VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Investments.
Vipin Kumar, Assistant Vice President of Technical and Derivatives Research at Globe Capital, said that there might be an initial jerk, but this will be more negative for US companies hiring Indian or foreign talent. In the short term, there will be an impact on Indian IT companies, but the US firms will bear it in the long term. “IT stocks are looking attractive from a medium to long-term perspective at this price juncture,” he added.
Let’s take a look at the key factors to watch out for today’s trading session
Early gainers and laggards
In early trade, among the Nifty 50, top gainers at this hour were Adani Enterprises, HDFC Life, SBI Life Insurance, Power Grid Corp, and Bajaj Finance. On the flip side, the key laggards in the Nifty 50 pack included Tech Mahindra, Infosys, TCS, Wipro, and HCL Technologies.
Major movers on Friday
The stocks that were the major movers in the opening trade included Bharti Airtel, Adani Enterprises, State Bank of India, Axis Bank, and Adani Ports, which were the major movers in the morning trade.