Market Opening Bell: NIFTY50, SENSEX extend gains after opening flat; IT stocks tumble, broader market up over 1%

After rallying for four days, the Indian equity market on Friday, March 21, opened lower following global cues and selling in the information technology sector.

However, the market rebounded later amid strong support from the broader market.

At 9:50 AM, the S&P BSE SENSEX was trading 213.68, 0.28% higher at 76,561.74, while NSE’s NIFTY50 was at the 23,260.70 level, advancing 70.05 points, or 0.03%.

Shares of information technology (IT) firms declined in the morning trades as Accenture released its second-quarter results. Accenture's revenue advanced 5% year-on-year to $16.7 billion in the December-February quarter, in line with the firm's guided range of $16.2 billion to $16.8 billion.

During the opening bell, the S&P BSE SENSEX was down 44.64 points, or 0.06%, at the 76,303.42 level, while NSE’s NIFTY50 was at the 23,175.20 level, falling 15.45 points, or 0.07%.

The market breadth was largely in favour of positives, as 2,096 stocks advanced on the NSE out of 2,558 stocks traded during the opening session.

As many as 39 stocks on the NIFTY50 index were trading in the green and 11 in the red.

Shares of Infosys, Wipro, HCL Technologies, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Titan were the biggest laggards on the 50-share index, slipping as much as 2.01%.

The foreign institutional investors (FIIs) took a U-turn from their selling spree and bought equities worth ₹3,239.14 crore in the Indian market on a net basis on Thursday, according to exchange data.

Globally, the US markets ended lower on Thursday amid economic worries and rising oil after tensions in the Middle East.

The WTI crude oil prices gained nearly 2% overnight as sanctions on Iran, fresh attacks on Gaza by Israel and output cuts by seven OPEC members added to supply concerns.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 11.31 points, or 0.03%, to 41,953.32, the S&P 500 slipped 12.40 points, or 0.22%, to 5,662.89 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 59.16 points, or 0.33%, to 17,691.63.

Following this, the Asian markets were trading mixed with a positive bias. The Japan indices opened in green after the holiday. The Chinese and Hong Kong indices continued to remain in the red on Friday morning.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 edged up 0.33% to 37,877.74. Hong Kong's Hang Seng was down 2.13% to 23,699.95, while the Shanghai Composite declined 0.94% to 3,376.96.

As many as 2,511 stocks traded on the NSE during the early session, among which only 2,007 stocks were trading in the green, 444 in the red and 60 shares remained unchanged.

This indicated that the market breadth favoured positives.

As many as 19 stocks hit their one-year high in the early trade, while 30 stocks touched their 52-week low.

Further, 70 stocks hit their upper circuits while only 19 hit their lower circuits.

India VIX, the volatility gauge, was trading 0.99% lower at 12.48 levels.

The broader market continued to soar during the opening bell as Nifty Midcap 100 traded 1.12% higher at 51,716.75 and Nifty Smallcap 100 was at 16,059.85 levels, rising 1.27%.

The stock's 52-week high level on the NSE stands at ₹230.40, which was touched on July 19, 2024.

The stock surged 2.15% to ₹365.6 apiece on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) at 9:35 am. Its market capitalisation stands at ₹76,228.33 crore.