Market opening: Indices open in green, SENSEX rises 115 points, NIFTY50 above 26,200, IT stocks drag; Coal India up 3%

The Indian stock market opened with marginal gains on Wednesday, December 24, mirroring its Asian peers and gains in realty and media stocks.

The broader market was trading in green in the early trade, with both the Nifty Midcap 100 and the Nifty Smallcap 100 rising 0.25% and 0.33%, respectively.

Among sectors, Nifty Realty took the lead among gainers, rising 0.88%, followed by Nifty Media (0.56%) and Nifty Consumer Durables (0.44%). On the contrary, Nifty IT (-0.52%), Nifty FMCG (-0.14%) and Nifty Auto (-0.02%) were the only sectoral losers in the opening session.

IT stocks tumbled after the Trump administration announced it would replace the random lottery system for the H-1B visa process with a merit-based mechanism that prioritises higher-skilled and higher-paid applicants.

According to exchange data, on Tuesday, the foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth ₹1,794.80 crore, while the domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought equities worth ₹3,812.37 crore on a net basis.

On the global front, taking cues from the overnight US markets, indices in Asia were trading higher on Wednesday.

Japan's Nikkei was up 0.12%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.14%, and China's Shanghai Composite gained 0.24%, while South Korea's KOSPI was trading 0.13% higher.

On Wall Street, the main indices closed higher on Tuesday after stronger-than-expected economic data boosted investors’ confidence.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.16%, and the S&P 500 rose 0.46%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq advanced 0.57%.

As many as 2,695 stocks traded on the NSE during the early session, among which only 1,850 advanced, 768 declined, and 77 shares remained unchanged.

This indicates that the market's breadth is favourable towards advances.

Meanwhile, 65 stocks hit their one-year highs in the early trade, while 17 stocks touched their 52-week lows.

Further, 36 stocks hit their upper circuits, while 15 hit their lower circuits.

India VIX, the volatility gauge, was trading at 9.36 levels, falling 0.18%.

As many as 33 stocks advanced, while 15 declined and three remained unchanged in the opening session on the NIFTY50 index.

Coal India was the most contributing stock, surging 2.71%, followed by Shriram Finance (1.32%), Jio Financial Services (0.92%), NTPC (0.9%) and Trent (0.86%).

On the flip side, Wipro (-0.75%), Infosys (-0.72%), Tech Mahindra (-0.56%), Eicher Motors (-0.52%) and HCL Technologies (-0.41%) were the top laggards on the 50-share index.