Nifty, Sensex Gain For The Third Straight Session; Fed Conference Eyed

Indian equity benchmarks gained for the third straight session early on Thursday, and were heading toward weekly gains for the sixth week in a row, tracking a broad upswing in broader Asian stocks.

The 30-share BSE Sensex index gained 269.68 points, or 0.46 per cent, to 59,355.11, and the NSE Nifty index was 77.95 points, or 0.44 per cent, higher at 17,682.90, tracking Asian share markets, which were broadly positive while the dollar was slightly weaker on Thursday.

Both the equity benchmarks ended Wednesday with marginal gains and extended their fag-end winning streak trend to the second straight day.

Still, investors were jittery ahead of the US Federal Reserve’s annual Jackson Hole conference for clues on how sharp future interest rate hikes might be.

The annual Jackson Hole, Wyoming, meeting of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy committee is scheduled to begin on Friday.

Investors now expect the Fed Funds rate to peak at 3.80 per cent in March 2023, up from 3.62 per cent a fortnight ago, Tapas Strickland, NAB’s economics director, told Reuters.

“Market moves at least are consistent with the hawkish pushback seen by Fed officials over recent weeks,” he added.

The dollar index, which measures the value of the dollar against a basket of other significant trading partners’ currencies, fell marginally in Asia to 108.51.

“Expectations of a hawkish message from FOMC Chair Powell at Jackson Hole will likely keep upward pressure on the US dollar in the run‑up to his speech on Friday,” Commonwealth Bank analysts wrote in a client note.

“However there is a risk that the speech is deemed not hawkish enough and that we see some retracement in the US dollar.”