MC Market Poll: RBI's pro-growth policy boosts Street morale; experts see Nifty closing CY25 between 25,000 and 27,000

Nifty climbs past 25,000 after RBI’s twin booster of rate and CRR cuts

Any pro-growth policy generally augurs well for the markets and the Reserve Bank of India's recent double bonanza - 50 basis points rate cut and 100 bps CRR cut — sailed Nifty 50 to 25,000 after a span of 8 months. According to the latest Moneycontrol Market Poll, majority of market experts expect the Nifty to end the current calendar year between 25,000 and 27,000. The top end of that range suggests a further upside of nearly 8 percent from current levels.

The poll showed that 55 percent of respondents expect the Nifty to end between 25,000 and 27,000 range in 2025. Meanwhile, 21 percent believe the index could close above 27,000, showing a rising bullish mood in the market. On the other side, another 21 percent expect the index to end CY25 between 23,000 and 25,000, and just 3 percent feel it could fall below 23,000.

The upbeat mood on Dalal Street comes from the belief that the benchmark index is trading at fair valuations. About 66 percent of the respondents feel valuations are reasonable, especially considering India’s strong GDP growth and a more supportive interest rate environment.

The Moneycontrol Market Poll had nearly 30 participants, including brokerage firms, mutual funds, alternative investment funds (AIFs), portfolio management services (PMS), and independent experts.

India’s benchmark indices, Sensex and Nifty, have risen 12 percent and 13 percent, respectively, since their April lows. This rally started after US President Donald Trump paused reciprocal tariffs for 90 days, easing global trade war worries. While corporate earnings have stayed soft, company managements are now more hopeful, indicating that the worst phase may be over. This has slowed the trend of earnings downgrades that had been ongoing in earlier quarters of FY25.

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Looking ahead, analysts at Bernstein recently said they expect the Nifty to reach 26,500 by the end of December. They believe the market is well-positioned and see strong support from healthy macroeconomic conditions, such as better liquidity, lower interest rates, increased government capital spending, improved rural demand, and tax relief measures, which should all help reduce risks to earnings growth.

Bernstein also noted that one key takeaway from the fourth-quarter earnings season was the absence of big surprises. Overall earnings growth has slowed only slightly, with NSE100 companies showing 10 percent growth in Q4 compared to 11 percent in the previous quarter. The big positive is that India has managed to avoid the worst-case earnings scenarios that many feared after a series of downgrades since September last year.

Anand K Rathi, co-founder at MIRA Money, said the Nifty could hit a new all-time high by October this year if earnings growth becomes visible in either the first or second quarter of FY26. “The Finance Minister has done her part by boosting demand, and the RBI’s liquidity push could bring interest rates down. That’s why we believe the overall setup for markets is quite supportive,” he added.