Sensex, Nifty open in green amid positive global cues

MUMBAI — Indian benchmark indices opened the week in the green zone on Monday, amid positive global cues and investor optimism of FII coming back to India due to loss in artificial intelligence (AI) stocks.

As of 9.25 am, Sensex was up 115 points, or 0.14 per cent at 83,331 and Nifty inched up 35 points, or 0.14 per cent to 25,521.

The broadcap indices outperformed benchmarks in terms of gains, with the Nifty Midcap 100 up or 0.37 per cent, and the Nifty Smallcap 100 adding 0.27 per cent.

Asian Paints, L&T and Hindalco were among the major gainers in the Nifty Pack, while losers included Trent, Apollo Hospitals, Max Healthcare, Maruti Suzuki and Dr Reddy's Labs.

Nifty IT, Metal and Pharma were among the biggest sectoral gainers, adding 0.56 to 0.79 per cent. All the sectoral indices were trading in the green except Nifty Media.

Analysts said that FIIs, particularly the hedge funds, who have been consistently selling in India and taking money out for playing the AI trade, are now likely to pause and slowly reverse the AI trade in favour of non-AI trade in countries like India.

"The strong earnings growth in the US has been a fundamental support that pushed up AI stock valuations to elevated valuations. Countries regarded as AI winners such China, South Korea and Taiwan also have benefited from this AI rally," said market watchers.

Analysts noted that there are signs of this AI trade losing steam as evidenced by the 3 per cent decline in Nasdaq last week. If this healthy trend persists without high volatility, it will make the US market robust, preempting a bubble formation and its eventual burst, they added.

Further, Wall Street stocks gained as reports suggested the longest shutdown of the US Federal Government might end.

The US markets ended in the green zone in the last trading session, as Nasdaq dipped 0.22 per cent, the S&P 500 added 0.13 per cent, and the Dow inched up 0.16 per cent.

Most of the Asian markets were trading in the green during the morning session. While China's Shanghai index lost 0.03 per cent, and Shenzhen dipped 0.59 per cent, Japan's Nikkei added 1.04 per cent, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index added 0.57 per cent. South Korea's Kospi jumped 3.04 per cent.