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Indian stock markets: Sensex crosses 81,000, Nifty above 24,500 as foreign investors pile in, GST hits record high

The Nifty firms that gained the most included Adani Ports, Maruti Suzuki India, Hindalco and Eternal Ltd.

The Bombay Stock Exchange building in Mumbai. (Express Photo: Ganesh Shirsekar)

Domestic stock market indices, the BSE Sensex and Nifty 50, surged nearly one per cent in the early morning trades on Friday, led by continued inflows from foreign investors and tracking gains in other Asian markets.

The Sensex rose 0.9 per cent, or 726.17 points, to 80,973.23. The Nifty gained 0.74 per cent, or 179 points to 24,513.2. Later, the Sensex rose to an intraday high of 81,177.93, up 1.16 per cent, or 935 points, compared to the previous close of 80,242.24.

“After the sharp market correction triggered by Trump’s reciprocal tariffs and the Pahalgam terror strikes, April has closed with above 4 per cent gains in Nifty. This surprising resilience of the market has been primarily driven by the sustained FII buying for eleven trading days in a row taking the cumulative FII buying for this period to Rs 37,375 crore,” said VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Investments Limited.

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FII buying has been driven by weakness in the dollar and declining growth prospects in the US, he said.

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Other macros like declining interest rates in India, decline in the crude price and green shoots of pickup in demand are positives for the market.

“The high probability of India among the five ‘allies’ of the US entering into early trade deals with the US is also a significant positive factor,” he said.

India’s Goods and Services Tax (GST) collection rose 12.6 per cent year-on-year to an all-time high of about Rs 2.37 lakh crore in April. This is the highest monthly collection since the tax was introduced in 2017. GST revenue from domestic transactions rose 10.7 per cent to about Rs 1.9 lakh crore, while imported goods were up 20.8 per cent to Rs 46,913 crore.

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Indian stock markets were closed on Wednesday due to a local holiday.

On Thursday, US stocks advanced, with the Dow and S&P 500 posting their eighth straight session of gains after strong results from mega-caps Microsoft and Meta eased concerns about artificial intelligence spending.

Microsoft surged 7.6 per cent and closed at its highest level since late January, driven by an upbeat quarterly growth forecast for its cloud-computing business Azure. The gains briefly pushed Microsoft above Apple to become the world’s most valuable company. Meta Platforms gained 4.2 per cent and closed at its highest since April 9 after posting higher-than-expected revenue due to a strong advertising performance.

“The results helped allay fears that the massive spending on AI in recent years would not be rewarded, and eased concerns that US President Donald Trump’s tariffs could dent economic growth,” said Devarsh Vakil, Head of Prime Research at HDFC Securities.

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Among the Asian indices, the Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 1.75 per cent and Japan’s Nikkei 225 surged 1.24 per cent.

The Nifty firms that gained the most included Adani Ports (5.56 per cent), Maruti Suzuki India (3.37 per cent), Hindalco (2.75 per cent) and Eternal Ltd (2.58 per cent).

Overall trend for the Nifty remains bullish, as it continues to trade above all key moving averages. Immediate support for the Nifty is placed at 24150, below which it could further fall towards 23870. On the higher side, 24,450-24,500 band is expected to continue acting as a significant resistance band.