New Delhi, Mar 20: Indian stock market indices made a positive start at the opening bell on Wednesday, largely due to some fresh buying after the latest slump.

At 9.40 am, Sensex was at 72,214.03 points, up 201.98 points, up 0.28 per cent, and Nifty at 21,874.00 points, up 56.55 points or 0.26 per cent. Among the widely tracked Nifty 50 stocks, 26 advanced, 2 were unchanged, and the rest 22 declined at the time of filing this report.

The benchmark stock indices fell to their lowest level in over a month on Tuesday, dragged by losses in the shares of IT companies. Sense and Nifty fell over 1 per cent.

Over the past week, the indices cumulatively traded in the red over reported concerns of overheating in the small and midcaps space and subsequent profit booking by investors.

Going ahead into this week, the monetary policy outcome of the US Federal Reserve will be closely monitored. Investors and traders will get some fresh clues on the future glide path of interest rates in these major economies.

The US Federal Reserve in its January meeting voted to leave the key interest rate unchanged at 5.25-5.50 per cent, keeping the policy rate unchanged for the fourth straight time on a trot.

"Fed's rate decision, more importantly the Fed commentary tonight, will decide the trend in the mother market US. Buy on dips is likely to emerge today in large caps," said VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services.

Meanwhile, foreign portfolio investors continue to remain net buyers in India. This is capped further downside in the stocks.

Foreign portfolio investors who had aggressively sold Indian stocks and turned net sellers in the Indian equity market in January 2024 became net buyers in February and March. This has also likely buoyed the stocks of late.

So far in March, they bought stocks in India worth Rs 40,616 crore, the latest data from the National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL) showed.

(ANI)

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