Market participants remained focused on the upcoming speech by Kevin Warsh, who is set to deliver his first major address as Federal Reserve chair at the annual Kansas City Fed economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The address is being closely watched for indications of the US central bank’s monetary policy outlook.

Buying interest was seen in IT, media and pharma shares, while FMCG, auto and realty stocks lagged.

At 13:25 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex advanced 118.93 points or 0.15% to 77,049.29. The Nifty 50 index rose 5.75 points or 0.02% to 24,096.60.

The broader market outperformed the frontline indices. The BSE 150 MidCap Index added 0.20% and the BSE 250 SmallCap Index jumped 0.33%.

The market breadth was positive. On the BSE, 2,146 shares rose and 1,975 shares fell. A total of 277 shares were unchanged.

Gainers & Losers:

Tata Consultancy Services (up 4.35%), HCL Technologies (up 3.27%), Tech Mahindra (up 3.22%), Infosys (up 2.93%) and Wipro (up 2.85%) were the top gainers.

Shriram Finance (down 1.32%), ICICI Bank (down 1.27%), Asian Paints (down 1.25%), Mahindra Ultratech Cement (down 1.20%) and Tata Steel (down 1.18%) were the top losers.

Stocks in Spotlight:

Tejas Networks jumped 8.65% and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) gained 4.35% after Tejas Networks received a Letter of Intent (LoI) from TCS for supplying equipment for Bharat Sanchar Nigam’s (BSNL) 4G mobile network.

Great Eastern Shipping Company advanced 1.06% after the company’s board approved a share buyback of up to Rs 900 crore through the open market route at a maximum price of Rs 1,530 per equity share. Under the buyback, the company will purchase up to 58,82,352 fully paid-up equity shares of face value Rs 10 each, representing up to 4.12% of the company’s total paid-up equity share capital as on 27 August 2026.

RailTel Corporation of India shed 0.05%. The company announced that it has secured a work order worth Rs 38.59 crore from the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) for cloud data centre services.

Ather Energy surged 8.84% and Hero MotoCorp rose 1.52% after Hero MotoCorp's board approved the purchase of additional shares in Ather Energy. Hero MotoCorp currently holds 29.88% of Ather on a fully diluted basis. Following the purchase, its stake will increase to up to around 32.8%. The transaction will be completed by 3 September 2026. Hero MotoCorp will pay cash consideration of up to Rs 1,758 crore for the additional shares.

Yatharth Hospital & Trauma Care Services rose 1.15% after a report said Advent International and Blackstone-backed Aster DM Quality Care were in discussions to acquire a controlling stake in the hospital chain.

Wipro rose 2.43% after the company announced an expansion of its partnership with Google Cloud to accelerate enterprise-wide adoption of Gemini Enterprise and agentic artificial intelligence (AI).

Global Markets:

European equities climbed alongside Asian stocks, with technology shares spearheading gains following Nvidia’s strong results and upbeat outlook.

Meanwhile, inflation in Tokyo, a leading indicator of nationwide price trends, remained close to the Bank of Japan's 2% target in August. Core consumer prices, which exclude volatile fresh food prices, rose 1.8% year-on-year, up slightly from 1.7% in July and broadly in line with expectations. A measure excluding both fresh food and fuel was around 2%, keeping attention on the Bank of Japan's monetary policy outlook.

All three major US indices closed higher on Thursday, led by a sharp rally in technology stocks following Nvidia's results and upbeat revenue outlook. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.20% to 53,569.00, while the S&P 500 gained 0.72% to 7,730.99 and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 1.57% to 26,541.00. Nvidia surged 8.7% after its strong results and forecast reinforced expectations of sustained demand for AI infrastructure. Salesforce jumped 22.6%, while CrowdStrike gained 20.5%, adding to the technology-led rally.

US initial jobless claims fell by 4,000 to 203,000 in the week ended August 22, compared with economists' expectations of 208,000, signalling continued resilience in the labour market. The data could reinforce the case for the Federal Reserve to remain cautious on rate cuts, particularly as inflation remains above its 2% target.

Separately, the US goods trade deficit widened sharply to $118.8 billion in July from the previous month, the widest gap since March 2025. Exports fell 2.9%, while imports rose 3.7%, with strong imports of capital goods linked to artificial intelligence investment contributing to the increase. The wider trade deficit could weigh on third-quarter economic growth.

Crude oil prices rose on Thursday after a media report said the Trump administration was not interested in returning to the terms of a June memorandum of understanding with Iran, raising doubts over efforts to ease supply disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz. Brent crude settled 2.1% higher at $89.70 a barrel. Oil prices, however, eased in early Asian trading on Friday.

Attention now shifts to Warsh, who is set to deliver his first major address as Federal Reserve chair at the annual Kansas City Fed economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Investors will closely parse his comments for clues on the Fed's approach to inflation and interest rates, particularly as inflation remains above the central bank's 2% target and longer-term Treasury yields remain elevated.