The Indian equity benchmarks are set to open with a gap up on Friday, October 16, as indicated by NIFTY futures traded at GIFT City in Gandhinagar. GIFT NIFTY futures advanced 104 points to 23,090 amid positive cues from global markets. The move follows Thursday’s sharp gains, with the SENSEX up 2.11% to 74,316 and the NIFTY50 up 1.66% to 22,997.

Investor sentiment turned positive after Jio Platforms announced dates for the country’s biggest share sale via initial public offering. The drop in crude prices and a contra AI trade, that is a decline in tech shares in South Korea and buying in Indian IT companies, also added to the positive sentiment on the street, analysts noted.

Asian markets rebounded after two days of losses as the tech selloff eased. Value buying at lower levels and easing crude prices in global markets helped lift indices. Japan’s Nikkei rose 1.77%, China’s Shanghai Composite index gained 0.61%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.65%, and South Korea’s KOSPI climbed 3%.

Overnight, U.S. stocks snapped their three-day losing streak as investors sifted their focus from AI stocks to Eli Lilly, UnitedHealth and other healthcare and consumer stocks. The S&P 500 index advanced 0.33%, Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.08% and tech heavy Nasdaq index 0.08%.

On Thursday, foreign institutional investors sold shares worth ₹5,285.37 crore while domestic institutional investors bought shares worth ₹3,319 crore. SEBI revised the framework for the Closing Auction Session, changing trading timings and the methodology for determining settlement prices of stock and index derivatives contracts. The 10-minute closing auction will operate from 3:30 pm to 3:40 pm, with trading in derivatives continuing until 3:45 pm, and settlement of expiring contracts will now use a volume weighted average price methodology based on the last 30 minutes of continuous trading.