The Indian stock markets on Wednesday continued their upward journey for the third straight trading session, with strong buying seen in financial stocks, especially private banks and some oil and gas shares.

The Sensex opened 262 points higher at 76,996 but slipped into the red to a low of 76,544 amid weak global cues as US-China trade tensions escalated. It later rebounded, rising 556 points from the day's low to a high of 77,110, and ended the session at 77,044, up 309 points or 0.4 per cent.

With this, the Sensex has gained 3,197 points in the last three trading sessions.

The Nifty also showed similar movement. It touched a low of 23,273 before recovering to a high of 23,452. The index ended the day near its high, at 23,433, gaining 104.60 points or 0.45 per cent. In the last three days, the Nifty has risen by 1,038 points.

The pilot and co-pilot of a helicopter that was allegedly damaged during former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy's visit to Sri Sathya Sai district last week appeared before police on Wednesday.

In response to the notices served by the police, Pilot Anil Kumar and co-pilot S. Jain appeared before the Deputy Superintendent of Police and Circle Inspector at C. K. Palli police station.

Elaborate security arrangements were made around the police station during their questioning.

YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) president Jagan Mohan Reddy had reached Papireddypalli village by helicopter on April 8 to console the family of a leader, allegedly murdered by the cadres of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP).

The YSRCP workers broke through the barricades at the helipad to reach close to the helicopter, and in the commotion, the chopper's windshield was reportedly damaged.

The RBI has already embarked on a rate cutting cycle, and a report by HSBC Global Research said on Wednesday that it expects a 25bp rate cut in each of the June and August policy meetings, taking the repo rate down to 5.5 per cent this fiscal (FY26).

Furthermore, it also expects easy liquidity conditions to persist and help in the transmission of rate cuts.

The CPI inflation in March came in at 3.3 per cent, lower than the market expectation of 3.5 per cent.

Food prices remained in deflation for the third month, down 0.7 per cent on-month, led by falling vegetable, pulses and egg, fish and meat prices.

The sequential momentum in cereal and milk prices was benign, while that of sugar and fruits was high.

A Crisil report on Wednesday projected India's CPI inflation to average 4.3 per cent this fiscal (FY26) -- with food, fuel and core inflation at 4.6 per cent, 2.5 per cent and 4.2 per cent, respectively.

This fiscal, “we expect food inflation to remain under control given the healthy rabi sowing, soft global food prices and the expected above-normal monsoon,” said the report.

The high base of last year will provide a downward (statistical) push to food inflation. The Indian Meteorological Department has forecast an above-normal monsoon for this fiscal, which should benefit the kharif crop.

“We expect non-food inflation to remain in the comfort zone with expectations of benign global commodity prices,” said the Crisil report.

India’s export of organic food products registered a robust 35 per cent increase to $665.96 million (around Rs 5,700 crore) during the financial year ended on March 31, 2025 compared to the corresponding figure of $494.80 million in 2023-24, according to the latest data released by the government.

In volume terms, the export of organic food goods, including cereals, tea, spices, medicinal plants, oilseeds and processed foods, went up by 41 per cent to 0.37 million tonnes (MT) in 2024-25 from 0.26 million tonnes in 2023-24.

The government said the upward trend shows rising global demand for Indian organic food products. The US is a major destination for Indian organic exports, while the EU, Canada, and UK are also important markets.

A Morgan Stanley report on Wednesday said that India is one of their preferred equity markets where macro conditions are resilient or sufficiently buffered by stimulus.

According to the global brokerage, in the ‘Brave New World’ dynamic that has been in the driving seat early on in the new US administration, among the larger markets, “we keep our core recommendation of overweight (OW) domestic India, domestic Japan, Singapore and the UAE” among others.

“We update our APxJ/EM Market Allocation framework, as well as our Major 15 APAC/EM market recommendations. In Asia Pacific, our preferred markets remain India and Singapore, while Philippines also moves up to OW given valuation support,” said Morgan Stanley.

“We remain most cautious on Taiwan and New Zealand, while we reduce the underweight on Korea and move to an EW stance on Australia,” it added.

The domestic benchmark indices opened flat on Wednesday amid weak global cues, as selling was seen in the IT and auto sectors in the early trade.

At around 9.29 am, Sensex was trading 23.12 points or 0.03 per cent up at 76,758.01 while the Nifty added 5.90 points or 0.03 per cent at 23,334.45.

Nifty Bank was up 258.05 points or 0.49 per cent at 52,637.55. The Nifty Midcap 100 index was trading at 52,148.35 after adding 173.90 points or 0.33 per cent. Nifty Smallcap 100 index was at 16,284.80 after climbing 105.50 points or 0.65 per cent.

According to market watchers, technically, the Nifty has decisively reclaimed levels above its 20, 50, and 100-day moving averages, a clearly encouraging sign for the bulls.

The Indian stock markets made a stunning comeback on Tuesday as the single-day rally added a massive Rs 10.9 lakh crore to investors’ wealth -- erasing all the losses that followed the US tariff shock on April 2.

In a powerful rally, the Sensex surged over 1,570 points while the Nifty jumped past 22,300 -- making it one of the sharpest gains in recent months.

The recovery was broad-based and driven by strong investor sentiment, boosted by global cues and domestic optimism.

The biggest trigger for the rally was a fresh update on US trade policy. Washington announced a 90-day delay in tariffs for most countries, except China.

The move eased investor nerves and reignited hopes for India’s position in global supply chains. Financial stocks led the charge, rising over 2 per cent due to their heavy weightage in the indices.

India's annual inflation rate, based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI), declined to 3.34 per cent in March this year, compared to the same month of the previous year, the lowest level since August 2019, according to figures released by the Ministry of Statistics on Tuesday.

Food inflation, during March, slowed to 2.69 per cent, which is the lowest level since November 2021.

The significant decline in headline inflation and food inflation during the month of March 2025 is mainly attributed to decline in inflation of vegetables, eggs, pulses, meat & fish cereals and milk, according to the official statement.

The key items with the lowest year-on-year inflation in March are ginger (-38.11 per cent), tomato (-34.96 per cent), cauliflower (-25.99 per cent), jeera (-25.86 per cent) and garlic (-25.22 per cent).

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