Financials, Reliance help Indian equity benchmarks extend gains

Aug 21, 2025, 11:54 GMT+7
(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 50advanced 0.28% to 25,120.3 and the BSE Sensexgained 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 financialsrose 0.5%, led by insurers including HDFC Life,ICICI Prudential Life,SBI Life and Niva Bupawhich 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-capsand mid-capsrose 0.5% and 0.2%, respectively.
Among individual stocks, Jupiter Wagonsjumped 12% on winning an order worth 2.15 billion rupees.
Prince Pipesclimbed 6.3% after Motilal Oswal reiterated a "Buy" rating and expected sequential margin expansion in fiscal 2026.
($1 = 87.0210 Indian rupees)

Sumber : Reuters