Stock market: Will BSE, NSE open for trading today, January 1, 2024?

Stock exchanges including BSE and NSE will open for trading on Monday, January 1, 2024. It would be a regular trading session. This is against a market holiday across the US, the UK, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Germany, France, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Italy, Spain and a dozen other share markets globally.

The Calendar 2023 saw the NSE Nifty climbing 20.03 per cent and the BSE Sensex jumping 18.74 per cent. This is against a 24 per cent rise in the US benchmark S&P500 index and a 13.7 per cent return in the Dow Jones Industrial Average during the same period.

Barring China (down 14 per cent), a majority of stock markets such as Brazil (up 33 per cent), Taiwan (up 27 per cent), Germany (up 24 per cent), France (up 20 per cent), Russia (up 20 per cent), Japan (up 19 per cent), South Korea (up 16 per cent) and the UK (up 9 per cent) delivered positive returns for 2023. The MSCI EM index was up 7 per cent for the yer in dollar terms while the MSCI India index gained 19 per cent for the same period.

With the rise in domestic stocks, analysts believe it is time for investors to be selective, especially in the midcap and smallcap space.

"There is an expectation of resumed FPI flows across emerging markets (EMs), particularly in India will go into large caps. The anticipated rotation inflows and favourable valuations may lead to large-cap outperformance in the next year. Hence we expect large and mega caps to outperform mid and smallcaps in 2024," said Shrikant Chouhan, Head- Equity Research, Kotak Securities.

In his base case, Chouhan values Nifty at 5 per cent discount to last 10-year average PE of 19 times on FY26 EPS of Rs 1,215 to arrive at December 2024 Nifty target of 21,865. In his bull case scenario, he sees Nifty at 24,294 by December 2024. In the bear case scenario, he projects Nifty at 19,436.

Tanvi Kanchan, Head - Corporate Strategy at Anand Rathi Shares and Stock Brokers said she anticipates that the Indian equity market, particularly mid cap and small cap stocks, will generate a lower return in 2024 compared to 2023.

Therefore, although Kanchan maintains a positive outlook for domestic stocks over the medium to long term, she believes that investors should reduce their return expectations for 2024.

Sharekhan said it is time to be cautious not fearful. "We prefer increasing exposure to large-caps (over small- cap/micro-caps) and Value Stocks at reasonable prices away from Growth Stocks trading at steep valuations. In terms of sectors, we see better times for pharma, two-wheeler auto and IT Services spaces in addition to our core multi-year investment themes of Capex (engineering/infra/real estate), capital (banks/financial services) and consumer," it said.