India's benchmark indexes were on course for a fifth straight session of gains on Monday, supported by a weak U.S. dollar and an uptick in domestic bank stocks. The Nifty 50 was up 0.82% at 24,047.15, while the BSE Sensex (.BSESN), opens new tab rose 0.79% to 79,166.69, as of 10:40 a.m. IST. The indexes logged their highest levels since January 6.
ICICI Bank (ICBK.NS), opens new tab and HDFC Bank (HDBK.NS), opens new tab, the two heaviest stocks on the Nifty 50 (.NSEI), opens new tab, jumped 0.9% and 1.3%, respectively, to hit lifetime highs after reporting better-than-expected earnings.
"Financials seem to be an easy consensus overweight, especially as they hadn't performed well in the last cycle (of market rally) and valuations are quite reasonable now," said Suresh Ganapathy, managing director and head of financial services research at Macquarie Capital. Moreover, foreign flows are coming back, with financials expected to be less affected by U.S. tariffs, he said. Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought Indian equities in the last three sessions on the back of a falling dollar and better growth prospects for the Indian economy, analysts said. "Our view on large caps remains constructive. Ever more so after the recent dollar depreciation, which could attract flows towards emerging markets like India," said Anand Vardarajan, business head at Tata Asset Management.
A weak dollar, which slid to a three-year low of 98.246 against a basket of currencies on Monday, reduces India's import bills and encourages foreign investment into emerging markets. Financials (.NIFTYFIN), opens new tab rose 1.3% and contributed to more than half to the Nifty 50's gains. The broader mid- (.NIFMDCP100), opens new tab and small-caps (.NIFSMCP100), opens new tab gained 1.6% and 1.1%. Among individual stocks, Infosys (INFY.NS), opens new tab jumped 2.5% despite missing quarterly earnings and flagging a weak fiscal year 2026. "Lower third-party sale – surprisingly not attributed to tariff linked delays – explained two-third of the (Q4 revenue) decline. In that context, we find Infosys' FY26 guidance of 0-3% encouraging, yet realistic," JM Financial said in a note.
