Sensex closes 846 points higher, Nifty gains 242 points: IT stocks rally ahead of TCS earnings

• India’s benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty50 ended on a positive note on Monday, snapping a three-day losing streak.
• Most of the sectoral indices closed the day in green, with the IT index leading the charge ahead of TCS’ earnings later today.
• The sentiment was largely positive on the Nifty50 index, with 43 out of the 50 stocks in the green.

India’s benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty50 ended Monday on a positive note amid favorable cues from global markets, snapping their three-day losing streak. Most of the sectoral indices were in the green, with IT, metal, auto and PSU banks leading the charts.

The rally in these stocks led the 30-stock Sensex to close the day with a gain of 847 points at 60,747, while the 50-stock Nifty50 closed 242 points up at 18,101.

The sentiment was largely positive on the Nifty50 index, with 43 out of the 50 stocks ending Monday in the green.

All the ten stocks in the Nifty IT index closed the day in the green, with Persistent Systems being the top gainer at 3.95%, followed by TCS at 3.03%.

Here are the top gainers and losers on the Nifty50 on Monday

Top gainers	Change	Top losers	Change
M&M	3.57%	Titan	-1.9%
SBI Life	3.24%	Bajaj Finserv	-1.28%
IndusInd Bank	3.05%	Grasim Industries	-0.69%
TCS	3.03%	Bajaj Auto	-0.64%
HCL Tech	3.02%	HDFC Life	-0.6%

Source: NSE, Nifty50 | As of 3:30 p.m., January 9, 2023

“Positive undercurrent in global markets had a rub-off effect on local equities, as investors resorted to short-covering after last week's correction helping key benchmark indices recapture their psychological levels,” said Shrikant Chouhan, head of equity research (retail), Kotak Securities.

IT services major TCS will kick off the earnings season for the December quarter today. Analysts suggest the IT services sector is staring at muted revenue growth in the third quarter on account of it being a seasonally weak quarter.

Weakness in the US dollar also reflected in the Indian rupee’s gains today – the rupee ended 36 paise higher at 82.36 per US dollar as against its previous close of 82.72.

On the other hand, crude oil prices jumped as China reopened its borders. Brent crude oil prices climbed to $81.2 on Monday, gaining 3.3%.

“With China steadily lifting covid restrictions, there are hopes that demand may pick up going ahead, which could give breathing space for the markets already battling recession fears, higher interest rate regime, and benign inflation levels,” Chouhan added.

Last week, markets ended in red amid mixed cues from global markets and heavy FII selling. Sensex closed 452 points lower below 60,000 mark at 59,900 and Nifty50 down 132 points at 17,859.

Another factor impacting markets is heavy FII selling as they have offloaded nearly ₹5,000 crore in just the first four trading sessions of the year.

Global markets edge up

All Asian markets also ended in green on hopes of less aggressive US rate hikes and the opening of China’s borders, which raised the outlook for the global economy.

Taiwan TSEC 50 index rallied the most with 2.64% gains followed by Hang Seng with 1.89% gains, Nikkei 225 up 0.59% and Shanghai SE Composite index ended up 0.58%.

The US markets closed 2% higher on Friday with tech index Nasdaq ending 2.56% higher, S&P 500 up 2.28% and Dow Jones closing 2.13%.

While foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold equities worth ₹203.13 crore on Monday, domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought equities worth ₹1,723 crore.

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