Indian Markets Start October Series Strong, Small Cap Stocks Outperform

On the first day of the October series, Indian markets began on a strong note, with the Nifty building on gains throughout the session. However, in the last 45 minutes of trade, minor profit booking led to the Nifty falling more than 100 points from its day’s high of 19,726, according to Devarsh Vakil, Deputy Head Retail Research at HDFC Securities.

Smaller stocks, represented by the Nifty Mid and Small Cap 100 Index, outperformed the Nifty, gaining 1.08% and 0.99% respectively compared to the Nifty’s 0.59% rise. Advancing shares outnumbered declining shares, with an advance-decline ratio of 1.85 on BSE, the highest since September 14. All sectoral indices ended in the green, except for Nifty IT, which was impacted by Accenture’s Q4 revenue falling short of estimates and its cautious outlook for the first quarter.