Market Opening Bell: Indices positive following global cues; SENSEX up over 600 pts, NIFTY50 tops 23,847

The Indian stock market on Tuesday, March 15, opened higher for the seventh straight day following positive global cues and foreign investors buying in the equity market.  

At 9:58 AM, the S&P BSE SENSEX was up 684.24 points, or 0.88%, at the 78,668.62 level, while NSE’s NIFTY50 was at the 23,847.35 level, rising 189 points, or 0.80%.

However, the market breadth was largely in favour of positives, as 1,446 stocks advanced on the NSE out of 2,396 stocks traded during the opening session.

UltraTech Cement, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), HCL Technologies, Trent and Infosys were the most contributing scrips on the National Stock Exchange, rising as much as 2.96%.

The broader market was trading mixed as midcap stocks advanced while the smallcap index was under pressure in the morning trade.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) purchased equities worth ₹3,055.76 crore on a net basis on Monday, according to exchange data.

Globally, the US markets closed upbeat on Monday, fuelled by hopes of a more targeted approach by the Trump administration on April 2. The NASDAQ closed 2.2% higher, followed by the S&P 500 at 1.76% and the Dow Jones at 1.42%. Tech stocks like Tesla (11.9%), Nvidia (2.9%), Palantir (6.4%) and Meta (3.8%) were the top index movers on Monday in the US.

Taking cues from buoyant US markets, the Asian markets too traded in green across the board, except for Hong Kong. The Japanese indices rose 331 points, or 1.3%, which was also beneficial due to the weaker yen. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index declined 1%.

Meanwhile, the crude oil prices extended their gains from last week on Monday after WTI and Brent crude oil prices jumped more than 1%. The gains came after President Trump announced 25% tariffs on any country importing oil from Venezuela.

As many as 2,578 stocks traded on the NSE during the early session, among which 1,218 stocks were trading positively, 1,269 in the red and 91 shares remained unchanged.

Meanwhile, only 25 stocks hit their one-year highs in the early trade, while 36 stocks touched their 52-week lows.

Further, 102 stocks were trading at their upper circuit while only 27 hit their lower circuits.

The volatility index India VIX was trading 2.53% higher at 14.05 levels.

The broader market was trading mixed during the opening bell as Nifty Midcap 100 rose 0.39% higher at 52,729.40 levels while Nifty Smallcap 100 was trading at 16,331.90 levels, falling 0.19%.

The stock rose 1.7% to ₹377.85 apiece on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) at 9:25 am. Its market capitalisation stands at ₹78,782.48 crore.