India's Equity Markets Ride Out Fed Rate Hike with Limited Impact

India's equity markets ended marginally higher on Thursday as investors took the widely anticipated US Federal Reserve interest rate hike in their stride. The NSE's Nifty rose 53 points or 0.2% to close at 23,270.6.

The BSE's Sensex fell 21.86 points or 0.03% to end at 74,314.59. Ramesh Mantri, chief investment officer at WhiteOak Capital AMC, said that 'the Fed rate hike was widely anticipated, and such expected events typically have limited impact on markets.'

Both US and Indian interest rates had already moved higher in anticipation of the decision, according to Mantri. The 25-basis-point rate hike by the Fed helped cool bond yields. The yield on the US 10-Year bond fell below 5%, snapping eight straight days of an uptrend.

Sunny Agrawal, head of research at SBI Securities, said that a correction in oil prices also provided some relief to Indian markets, which led to indices ending higher. Brent crude oil November futures were trading around $102 a barrel on Thursday evening, down from the $105 mark on Wednesday.