Sensex gained 226.11 points to reach 80,123.45, and Nifty50 climbed 82.1 points to 24,398.05.
MUMBAI: Brisk buying in IT stocks, enthused by the encouraging TCS April-June quarterly results, fuelled a rally in equity benchmark indices in early trade on Friday. Data showed that the 30-share BSE Sensex gained 226.11 points to reach 80,123.45, and the NSE benchmark Nifty50 climbed 82.1 points to 24,398.05.
TCS (Tata Consultancy Services), a company in the Sensex basket, rose 2 per cent as the country’s largest IT service firm reported an 8.7 per cent jump in Q1 net profit to Rs12,040 crore on Thursday. Other stocks witnessing heavy buying in early trade included Axis Bank, Mahindra & Mahindra, Bajaj Finance, and HCL Technologies. Major losers were Maruti, Asian Paints, Bharti Airtel, and ITC.
“TCS numbers were better than market expectations, and management expressed high hopes for the remaining three quarters. This sentiment has lifted other major IT firms,” said a chief economist at a leading brokerage.
Among Asian peers, Hong Kong opened in the green, while Seoul, Tokyo, and Shanghai started on a lower note.
US markets ended mostly lower on Thursday. Global oil benchmark Brent crude climbed 0.25 percent to $85.59 a barrel. Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 1,137.01 crore on Thursday, according to exchange data.
Retreating from early highs, the BSE benchmark closed lower by 27.43 points or 0.03 percent at 79,897.34 on Thursday. The NSE Nifty edged down 8.50 points or 0.03 percent to settle at 24,315.95.
