The equity benchmarks traded with minor gains in morning trade. The Nifty traded above the 25,000 mark. IT shares extended gains for the second consecutive trading session.
At 10:30 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex added 146.11 points or 0.18% to 81,834.56. The Nifty 50 index added 8.90 points or 0.04% to 25,023.50.
The broader market underperformed the frontline indices, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index fell 1.15% and the S&P BSE Small-Cap index slipped 2.11%.
The market breadth was weak. On the BSE, 870 shares rose and 2,840 shares fell. A total of 159 shares were unchanged.
Economy:
According to the data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday, India's forex reserves were at $704.89 billion, having risen by $12.6 billion in the week through Sept. 27 in their biggest weekly increase since mid-July 2023.
According to the Weekly Statistical Supplement released by the RBI, Foreign currency assets (FCAs) were up by $10.4 billion to $616 billion.
Gold reserves reported a surge of $2 billion to $65.7 billion. Meanwhile, SDRs for the week rose marginally by $8 million to stand at $18.547 billion. Reserve position in the IMF dipped by $71 million to $4.3 billion.
Buzzing Index:
The Nifty IT index rose 0.68% to 42,197.65. The index rallied 1.04% in two consecutive trading sessions.
Mphasis (up 2.32%), LTIMindtree (up 2.32%), Persistent Systems (up 2.11%), Coforge (up 1.31%), Infosys (up 0.9%), HCL Technologies (up 0.64%), Tata Consultancy Services (up 0.59%), L&T Technology Services (up 0.42%), Wipro (up 0.39%) and Tech Mahindra (up 0.15%) advanced.
Stocks in Spotlight:
Tata Steel shed 0.90%. The companny said that in Q2 FY25, the crude steel production of India division stood at 5.27 million tons (up 5% YoY) and deliveries were 5.10 million tons (up 6% YoY).
Avantel jumped 6.31% after the company reported 42.44% increase in consolidated net profit to Rs 22.89 crore in Q2 FY25 as compared with Rs 16.07 crore in Q2 FY24. The company‘s revenue from operations jumped 42.5% YoY to Rs 77.42 crore in Q2 FY25.
Bandhan Bank added 0.45%. The company has reported 21.4% increase in loans & advances to Rs 1,30,652 crore for the three month period ended on 30 September 2024 from Rs 1,07,633 crore recorded during the same period last year.