Market update. Sensex, Nifty edge higher ahead of GDP data, Powell's speech

Domestic benchmarks opened marginally higher on Wednesday, as investors cautiously awaited the gross domestic product data and the US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's speech due later in the day.

The S&P BSE Sensex rose 0.29 per cent to 62,865.74 in early trade. Similarly, NSE Nifty 50 index gained 0.33 per cent to a new record high of 18,679.55.

Both the benchmarks are on course to log gains for the seventh day in a row, if gains hold.

Sectorally, Nifty Metal rose the most and extended gains for the second day, adding 1.1 per cent.

Data due on Wednesday is expected to show the Indian economy likely returned to a more normal 6.2 per cent annual growth rate in July-September after double-digit expansion in the previous quarter.

Wider Asian markets were mixed on Wednesday after China's factory activity contracted at a faster-than-expected pace, with the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index adding 0.42 per cent.

Wall Street equities closed mostly lower overnight ahead of Powell's speech at a Brookings Institution event.

Among individual domestic stocks, Inox Wind and Inox Green surged 7.45 per cent and 3.72 per cent, respectively, after the two companies announced that they paid debt worth ₹411 crore, as part of efforts to deleverage their balance sheets.

Shares of rice producers, such as Chaman Lal, GRM Overseas, KRBL, and LT Foods rose after government exempted organic non-basmati broken rice from export curbs.