Opening Bell: Markets take a U-turn; IT stocks shine

On Thursday, domestic equity market benchmark indices, BSE Sensex and Nifty 50 opened on a cheering note. At 7.30 a.m, Nifty futures on the Singapore Exchange, traded 163 points, or 0.98 per cent higher at 16,852, indicating that Dalal Street was likely to commence the trading session with a strong start on Thursday.

At the opening bell, Sensex was up 516.68 points or 0.93% at 56185.71, and the Nifty was up 157.20 points or 0.94% at 16834.80. About 1610 shares have advanced, 395 shares declined, and 60 shares are unchanged. India VIX dropped 8.38% trading at 20.04 in the initial hour of the trading session.

Hindalco Industries, Infosys, Tata Steel, ONGC and Tech Mahindra were among the major gainers on the Nifty, while losers were Nestle, Apollo Hospitals, Tata Consumer Products, Asian Paints and NTPC. On Sensex, the leading stocks were Tata Steel, Infosys, Tech Mahindra, Kotak Mahindra Bank and SBI while the top losers were Nestle India, NTPC, Asian Paints, Bharati Airtel and HUL.

In the broader markets, at 9.50 am BSE Mid Cap and Small Cap indices traded in the green, up 0.92% and 0.71%, respectively. In the BSE Midcap index, the top gaining stocks were ABB India, General Insurance Corporation of India, Ruchi Soya, Mahindra & Mahindra Finance, and TVS Motors whereas, in the BSE Smallcap index, Future Consumer, Varroc Engineering, Astec Lifesciences, Yaari Digital Integrated Services and Shanthi Gears were the top gainers. The midcap stock ABB India soared up to 9% on robust March quarter earnings and robust order book.

On the sectoral front, all the indices were trading in green with metals, oil & gas, auto, IT, finance and power sectors gaining above 1%. The BSE IT index gained up to 1.5%. The top stocks lifting the index up were Matrimony.com, Tech Mahindra, Vakrangee, FirstSource Solutions and Aurum PropTech.