Market Opening Bell: Indices open flat, SENSEX up 136 points, NIFTY50 below 25,000 level; Tata Steel top gainer

The Indian stock market opened marginally up on Tuesday, May 20, following global cues and gains in the IT sector.

In the early trades, the broader market was trading in red, snapping its six days of rally. The Nifty Midcap 100 index fell 0.22% to 56,982.15 levels, while the Nifty Smallcap 100 index was seen at 17,616.35 levels, declining 0.19%.

On the global front, all the Asian stocks were trading with gains on Tuesday morning, taking cues from overnight gains in the US markets and a strong liquidity boost from China.

The Nikkei 225 was trading 0.37% higher at 37,639.17 levels, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng and South Korea's KOSPI gained 1.34% and 0.27%, respectively. The Shanghai Composite was up 0.36% to the 3,379.67 level.

The US benchmark indices shrugged off worries of a government debt ratings downgrade and closed in green across the board on Monday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 137.33 points, or 0.32%, to 42,792.07, the S&P 500 advanced 5.22 points, or 0.09%, to 5,963.60 and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 4.36 points, or 0.02%, to 19,215.46.

As many as 2,412 stocks traded on the NSE during the early session, among which only 1,104 stocks were trading in the green, 1,236 in the red and 72 shares remained unchanged.

This indicated that the market breadth favoured negatives.

As many as 28 stocks hit their one-year high in the early trade, while only 3 stocks touched their 52-week low.

Further, 72 stocks hit their upper circuits, and 11 hit their lower circuits.

India VIX, the volatility gauge, was trading 0.34% lower at 17.30 levels.

Tata Steel was the most contributing stock on the 50-share index, rising 2.02%. JSW Steel (1.22%), Infosys (1.12%), ITC (1.02%), Tech Mahindra (0.96%) and Hindalco Industries (0.89%) were the other top gainers.

On the flip side, Shriram Finance (-1.15%), Eicher Motors (-0.99%), HDFC Bank (-0.83%), Jio Financial Services (-0.79%) and Power Grid (-0.69%) were the top losing stocks on the index.

Except for Nifty IT (1.08%), Nifty Metal (0.86%) and Nifty FMCG (0.24%), all the other sectoral gauges were trading in red.

Nifty Realty (-0.91%), Nifty Media (-0.57%), Nifty Consumer Durables (-0.41%), and Nifty Private Bank (-0.36%) were the biggest losers among sectors.