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Gaining momentum persisted in Indian equity markets in early afternoon deals with both Sensex and Nifty higher around 2%, aided by positive cues from other Asian markets. Domestic sentiments were optimistic, as India's annual wholesale price-based inflation (WPI) eased in September to 10.70% as against 12.41% recorded in August 2022 and 11.8% in September last year. Besides, World Bank President David Malpass said that India has taken good advantage of digitisation to create social protection programmes that reach the poor, noting that the country can do a lot more on the administrative side to create efficiencies. The street overlooked reports that private equity investments plunged 77.5 per cent to $3.84 billion in the September quarter, reflecting the overall decline in funds flows into startups especially since the Ukraine war.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in green, even after China's consumer price inflation accelerated at the fastest pace in more than two years in September on food prices, while producer price inflation eased further. Consumer price inflation accelerated to 2.8 percent in September from 2.5 percent in August. Food prices gained 8.8 percent annually driven by pork prices and non-food prices moved up 1.5 percent.

Back home, logistics industry stocks were in focus, as Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Textiles, Piyush Goyal said that PM GatiShakti National Master Plan (NMP) has the potential to save over Rs 10 lakh crore annually by improving logistics efficiency.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 58391.95, up by 1156.62 points or 2.02% after trading in a range of 58097.10 and 58435.12. There were 29 stocks advancing against 1 stock declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose by 0.89%, while Small cap index was up by 0.94%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were IT up by 2.99%, TECK up by 2.85%, Bankex up by 2.20%, Consumer Durables up by 1.69% and Capital Goods was up by 1.61%, while there were no losers on the BSE sectoral front.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Infosys up by 5.10%, HDFC Bank up by 3.54%, HCL Tech up by 3.32%, HDFC up by 3.18% and Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 3.00%. On the flip side, Power Grid down by 0.05% was the lone loser.

Meanwhile, applauding India's digitisation efforts, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said that the move was a game changer as it had allowed the Indian government to do things that would have been extremely difficult otherwise. He said digitisation is helping along a number of dimensions. One is financial inclusion, obviously because there are a lot of people in countries like India that were unbanked. And having access to digital wallets is a way in which they can enter into transactions that are not just cash transactions, which are very inefficient.

Gourinchas suggested ‘So that's a huge plus in terms of bringing people into a more modern economy. That's a factor for growth, adding that your market becomes very different if you are plugged into this digital instrument. The second one which I think has also been important in the case of India is these digital instruments also allow governments to reach and disburse systems in ways that are much harder to do sometimes with some of the regular pipes of the safety net’.

The chief economist of the IMF said ‘one of the lessons we've learned from both the pandemic and we're learning it again with the energy crisis, is how can we provide the assistance where it's needed. Because it's enormously costly to just have a blanket policy that is going to cover everyone’. He said most people don't necessarily need this and most businesses may not need it. But sometimes it has to be done that way because that's the only way it can be done. Digitisation offers the promise of more targeted assistance when it's needed. That is potentially a game changer because it means that now policy can be more nimble. It can have less of an impact on sort of the overall fiscal stance. So, more protection, more insurance can be provided.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 17336.50, up by 322.15 points or 1.89% after trading in a range of 17251.40 and 17348.55. There were 48 stocks advancing against 2 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Infosys up by 5.06%, HDFC Bank up by 3.58%, UPL up by 3.33%, HCL Tech up by 3.32% and HDFC up by 3.23%. On the flip side, JSW Steel down by 0.41% and Power Grid down by 0.14% were the only losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green; KOSPI rose 49.68 points or 2.3% to 2,212.55 Straits Times advanced 21.52 points or 0.71% to 3,061.97, Shanghai Composite gained 57.14 points or 1.89% to 3,073.50, Taiwan Weighted strengthened 317.39 points or 2.48% to 13,128.12, Nikkei 225 surged 853.34 points or 3.25% to 27,090.76 and Hang Seng increased 400.15 points or 2.44% to 16,789.26, while Jakarta Composite lost 16.56 points or 0.24% to 6,864.07.

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