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Informist, Wednesday, Apr. 15, 2026

By Gopika Balasubramanium

MUMBAI – Benchmark equity indices are expected to sustain gains in the near term, given there are no negative news flow with respect to the West Asia war. There are expectations that the US and Iran would meet in the next couple of days for the second round of peace talks in Islamabad. The blockade by US on Iranian ports and renewed Iranian threats had endangered the week-old ceasefire agreement, but officials Wednesday said they were making progress, and told The Associated Press that the US and Iran had given an "in principle agreement" for more diplomatic talks. Following this, the e-Mini Dow Futures contract expiring in June came off lows and at 1641 IST, it was 0.1% lower at 48716 points. However, concerns on impact on economy due to high energy costs persist.

Optimism around potential US–Iran negotiations supported a broad-based market sentiment and also eased oil prices below $100 as expectations of resumption in talks outweighed concerns over oil supply disruption, Vinod Nair, head of research at Geojit Investment, said in a note. Despite muted outlook for the March quarter earnings, investors remained enthusiastic about attractive valuations and relatively better outlook for the financial year, indicating the rally could sustain near term. 

Technical analysts expect the buying momentum in the market to continue in the near term. While the intraday support for the Nifty 50 for Thursday is at 23900-24000 points, the resistance is at 24450-24500 points. However, if the Nifty 50 falls below 23900 points, the sentiment could change and in that case, traders may prefer to exit their long positions, Shrikant Chouhan, head equity research at Kotak Securities, said in a note. The Nifty 50 closed at 24231.30 points, up 388.65 points or 1.6%. 

Further, while the valuations have become attractive, some heads of research do not expect the foreign institutional investors to come in so quickly, as they would prefer China, South Korea, or Taiwan. Even if they are looking at emerging markets, they are most likely to prefer China over India, a head of research at a domestic brokerage said. On earnings, he expects Nifty 50 companies to see a 13% growth in the top line in the March quarter, with earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation at 12%. 

For the current financial year, he said there are concerns that the corporate earnings may take a hit due to higher input, and the energy crisis will take sometime to resolve and get back to normal. Higher crude oil prices are to put India's economy at risk as it would prompt rise in inflation, drag overall growth, and widen the current account deficit. Earlier in the day, India's WPI inflation rose to an over three-year high in March at 3.88% due to higher prices of crude oil and fuel products because of the war in West Asia, data released by the commerce ministry Wednesday showed. The inflation was higher than expectations. Economists had estimated March WPI inflation at 3.6%.

Among sectors, analysts expect some buying interest to come in banking and consumer durable stocks in the near term, amid comfortable valuations. On Wednesday, the Nifty Consumer Durables closed at 37361.25 points, up 2.9%. "Temperature is one of the key trigger if you ask me from the near-term perspective," said Keshav Lahoti, analyst at HDFC Securities. For the consumer durables, the net profit for the companies under his coverage is seen down 15-20% on year for March quarter and revenue is seen growing 7% on year. "I think demand is more critical at this point. Things are picking up, so far till, you know, first week of April, summer has not been so great," he said. However, some analysts said the gains in stock prices of these white-goods makers were largely on the back of price hikes taken by the company.  End

Edited by Akul Nishant Akhoury

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