Market Ahead Podcast, September 16: Factors that could guide markets today

Snapping their sideways movement amid encouraging economic data and ebbed Covid-19 cases, benchmark indices clinched new record peaks on Wednesday.

The frontline S&P BSE Sensex claimed an all-time high of 58,777 in the intra-day deals, before closing 476 points higher at 58,723.

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty index settled above 17,500 for the first time at 17,519, up 139 points. It had scaled a fresh high of 17,533 earlier in trade.

Now, going into trade on Thursday, the spotlight would, largely, be on financials and telecom stocks after the government announced relief measures for telecom service providers.

According to Dr. V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, the measures announced for the telecom industry are sweeping with far-reaching impact.

He further says, the four-year moratorium on dues of the telecom sector is positive for banks, too, since their exposure too will decline significantly.

Rahul Sharma, co-Founder of Equity99, too, expects banks to perform well in the coming session as the relief measures for telcos, announced during the fag-end of the session, resulted in big white candles on hourly charts, highlighting bullish sentiment.

That said, weekly F&O expiry and US retail sales data, due later today, may keep secondary markets mildly volatile.

On the other hand, the primary market may see increased investor activity as today is the last day to apply for the Sansera Engineering IPO.

The public offer of the auto component maker sailed through on the second day of the issue, backed by retail investors.