Markets likely to take off on the back of exit poll results

If the exit polls are anything to go by, then it looks like the slogan ‘Abki Baar, Fir Modi Sarkar’ would come true. The exit polls hinted at a clear majority for the incumbent NDA government and have assigned anywhere between 270 to 340 seats to the ruling NDA combine in the general elections. Judging by the early action in SGX Nifty, it appears that stocks at Dalal Street will roar out of the gate in today’s trading. At the time of writing, the SGX Nifty had surged over 2.5 per cent. The earnings on the tap for the day are BPCL, HPCL, Bharat Forge, Torrent Pharma and UBL.

Asian stocks are trading mixed on the first trading session of the week. The Japanese stock index Nikkei 225 has added 0.22 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng has slipped 0.82 per cent and China’s Shanghai Composite has lost 1.16 per cent.  

Back home, the bulls extended their rally for the second successive trading session on Friday. The BSE Sensex and Nifty reclaimed their important psychological levels of 37,900 and 11,400, respectively. Buying interest was seen in the broader indices as well, with Nifty Midcap and Smallcap registering gains of 1.21 per cent and 0.53 per cent, respectively. Among sectoral indices, selling pressure was seen in Nifty Pharma, Nifty IT and Nifty Metal, while Nifty Financial Services, FMCG, Nifty Auto and Nifty Private Banks posted gains of over 2 per cent each.

Wall Street turned jittery on Friday as the ominous uncertainty over US-China trade came back to haunt the investors again. A report suggested that the talks between the US and China had halted. Meanwhile, on the economic front, consumer sentiment jumped to a 15-year high. In the end, the Dow Industrial Average dipped 0.4 per cent, the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 1 per cent and the S&P 500 slipped 0.6 per cent.

European equities finished lower on Friday amid lingering US and China trade concerns as also the breakdown of Brexit talks. On the economic front, Eurozone core inflation climbed to 1.3 per cent in April, higher than the estimate. Germany’s benchmark DAX declined 0.58 per cent, France’s CAC 40 index shed 0.07 per cent and the UK’s FTSE slipped 0.18 per cent.