India’s equity benchmarks edge higher, led by energy shares

India’s equity benchmarks rose in early trade on Monday, led by energy stocks, after posting their sharpest weekly fall in nearly seven months.

The Nifty was up 0.43% at 24,761.5, while the BSE Sensex added 0.39% to 80,745.23, as of 10:02 a.m. IST.

The indexes, which fell 2.7% last week, have logged losses in each of the previous six sessions as a hike in U.S. H-1B visa fees and steep tariffs on branded drugs hit investor sentiment and worsened foreign outflows.

Investors await the Reserve Bank of India’s policy decision on Wednesday.

A Reuters poll showed nearly three-quarters of economists expect a pause, but several major banks have flagged the possibility of a cut, citing downside risks to growth.

On the day, fifteen of the 16 major sectors rose.

Energy and oil and gas advanced 1.2% and 1.5%, respectively, supported by oil marketing companies such as BPCL and HPCL after multiple brokerages said they see stable fuel prices and focus on improving market capitalization as positives.

Oil India jumped 2.2% after reporting natural gas in its exploratory well in Andaman Shallow offshore blocks.

The broader small-caps and mid-caps rose about 0.7% each.

Bucking the trend, fast-moving consumer goods index 0.3%, dragged by a 1.5% fall in Hindustan Unilever, which forecast a flat-to-low single-digit percent business growth in the ongoing quarter due to transitory disruption at distributors and retailers across channels because of government’s tax cuts.

“The absence of any negative further developments over the weekend is being perceived constructively, but investor sentiment remains restrained by steep U.S. tariffs and H-1B visa fee hike,” said Abhishek Goenka, founder and CIO of wealth management platform Billionz.

“In the medium term, we expect the Nifty to trade within a 24,500–25,000 range, consolidating with a modest weakening bias.”