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Informist, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026

 

By Eshitva Prakash

 

MUMBAI – The benchmark equity indices are expected to be in a range with a positive bias Thursday. Technical analysts said the Nifty 50 is likely to consolidate until it decisively breaches the 26000-point mark. Investor sentiment is likely to remain cautious for a few sessions as the India-US trade deal is still limited to a framework and has not been formalised, they said. Besides, India's commitment to halt crude oil purchases from Russia and a selective opening of its agriculture market to the US may also be causes for worry.

 

The market is still waiting for full implementation of the India-US trade deal and a decisive revival in foreign funds inflows, Sanjeev Khandelwal, a part of the BNK Securities management team, said. "For the next rally to happen, improvement in earnings visibility and sustained buying from foreign investors is necessary," he said. The Nifty 50 has been moving in a range since rising sharply after the trade deal was announced. Khandelwal expects the interim agreement document to provide a clearer picture of the nature of the deal.

 

For some analysts, the recent depreciation in the rupee has been a key hindrance for foreign fund inflows. "Foreign investors are skittish about investing in Indian equities as the rupee seems to have settled around the INR 90-per-dollar mark despite the relative depreciation of the greenback against other currencies recently," Rohit Srivastava, market strategist and founder of Indiacharts, said.

 

However, others say foreign portfolio investors may look beyond US markets after the greenback's fall last year significantly eroded their gains from investments in the US. "The rupee stability and hope of appreciation in the months ahead also can nudge foreign investors to turn buyers in India," V.K. Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Investments, said.

 

Vijaykumar added that there is an "unhealthy trend" in the market with inflows into gold and silver exchange-traded funds are exceeding inflows into active equity funds. "This is the time to put more money into equity than into precious metals which have turned highly volatile rather than a safe haven," he said.

 

"Following this development (of the US cutting duty on goods from India), the labour-intensive export sectors, including textiles, cut and polished diamonds, seafood, and footwear will see improved landed-cost competitiveness," rating agency ICRA said. While the sentiment boost is immediate, the translation of this policy into higher export volumes and margin restoration is likely to unfold with a lag, depending on how quickly contracts with US buyers are refreshed and how US demand patterns evolve, the agency said.

 

The rating agency has revised its outlook on the Indian apparel exports sector to "stable" from "negative". The US market is important for apparel companies because it is a large contributor to their revenues and is also generally more profitable than other markets, ICRA said. Despite the lower US tariffs, apparel export revenues are still expected to contract in the financial year 2025–26 (Apr-Mar), but the decline is predicted at 3–5% now as compared to 6–9?rlier, according to ICRA. Moreover, the agency expects a rebound in revenue in FY27, predicting a growth of 8–11% for such players, as opposed to earlier expectations of a 4-6?cline in the year.

 

ICRA maintained its "negative" outlook on the cut and polished diamonds sector as the demand for natural diamonds has been hurt by the sales growth of lab-grown diamonds which have gained greater consumer acceptability. Alongside volume contraction, natural diamonds have faced pricing pressures with average realisation per carat falling over the past three years, ICRA said.

 

The Nifty 50 is expected to face resistance at the psychologically crucial level of 26000 points and a movement above this mark could lead to a further rise towards 26200 points, Rupak De, technical analyst at LKP Securities, said. Thursday, the Nifty 50 and the BSE Sensex ended flat at 25953.85 and 84233.64 points, respectively. The 50-stock index is expected to find support at 25700 points, the analyst said.

 

Investors are set to react to a slew of companies that released their earnings after market hours Wednesday. They are also waiting for the December quarter earnings of Hindustan Unilever, Coal India, Hindalco Industries, and Oil and Natural Gas Corp., due Thursday. Investors also await the US non-farm payrolls report for January, which was delayed for a few days by the partial government shutdown. The data are due to be released later in the day.  End

 

Edited by Rajeev Pai

 

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