By Kashish Tandon and Bharath Rajeswaran
(Reuters) -India’s equity benchmarks rose on Thursday, as gains in financials buoyed by a proposal to exempt insurance premiums from tax and Reliance Industries overpowered a pullback in IT stocks ahead of the Federal Reserve’s annual symposium.
The Nifty 50 advanced 0.28% to 25,120.3 and the BSE Sensex gained 0.35% to 82,146.4, as of 10:22 a.m. IST.
The indexes had risen in each of the last five sessions, gaining about 2%, aided by proposed reforms to India’s goods and services tax (GST) regime and S&P’s upgrade of the country’s long-term sovereign credit rating.
Eleven of the 16 major sectors posted gains. Heavyweight financials rose 0.5%, led by insurers including HDFC Life, ICICI Prudential Life, SBI Life and Niva Bupa, which rose between 1% and 3%.
A GST panel of Indian state ministers has proposed exempting taxes on health and life insurance premiums for individuals.
Index heavyweight Reliance Industries rose 1.2%, driving the oil and gas index 0.8% higher.
IT stocks, which rose about 3% in the previous two sessions, fell 0.2% ahead of Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s comments at the Jackson Hole summit, limiting gains on the benchmark indexes.
“The near-term market outlook remains positive on the back of the proposed GST reform plans that could boost consumption,” said Siddhartha Khemka, head of research of wealth management at Motilal Oswal Financial Services.
However, the market may tread carefully with U.S. tariffs on goods from India kicking in from August 27 and lingering uncertainty around Russia–Ukraine peace talks.
The broader small-caps and mid-caps rose 0.5% and 0.2%, respectively.
Among individual stocks, Jupiter Wagons jumped 12% on winning an order worth 2.15 billion rupees.
Prince Pipes climbed 6.3% after Motilal Oswal reiterated a “Buy” rating and expected sequential margin expansion in fiscal 2026.
($1 = 87.0210 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Kashish Tandon and Bharath Rajeswaran in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala and Rashmi Aich)
