Broader market underperforms; IT shares advance

The headline equity indices traded with minor gains in early afternoon trade. The Nifty traded above the 22,350 mark. IT shares gained after declining in the past trading session.

At 12:27 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 283 points or 0.39% to 73,785.64. The Nifty 50 index rose 42.65 points or 0.19% to 22,375.30.

The broader market underperformed the headline indices. The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index declined 1.29% and the S&P BSE Small-Cap index slipped 2.38%.

The market breadth was weak. On the BSE, 586 shares rose and 3,196 shares fell. A total of 106 shares were unchanged.

Economy:

Passenger vehicle wholesales in India rose 11% year-on-year in February, as sports utility vehicles continued to steer demand in the market, industry body SIAM said on Tuesday. The total passenger vehicle dispatches to dealers last month stood at 3,70,786 units, as compared to 3,34,790 units in the year-ago period. "Passenger vehicles again reported its highest-ever sales of February posting sales of 3.7 lakh units with a growth of 10.8% as compared to February 2023," SIAM Director General Rajesh Menon said in a statement.

Derivatives:

The NSE's India VIX, a gauge of the market's expectation of volatility over the near term, shed 1.30% to 13.81. The Nifty 28 March 2024 futures were trading at 22,463.60, at a premium of 88.3 points as compared with the spot at 22,375.30.

The Nifty option chain for the 28 March 2024 expiry showed maximum Call OI of 32.6 lakh contracts at the 23,000 strike price. Maximum Put OI of 45.1 lakh contracts were seen at 21,000 strike price.

Buzzing Index:

The Nifty IT index rose 0.94% to 37,337.05. The index shed 0.30% in the past trading sessions.

Tata Consultancy Services (up 1.52%), Infosys (up 1.27%), LTIMindtree (up 1.21%), HCL Technologies (up 0.39%) advanced.

On the other hand, Persistent Systems (down 1.46%), Mphasis (down 1.22%) and Wipro (down 0.95%) edged lower.

Stocks in Spotlight:

Mahindra & Mahindra shed 0.20%. The company informed that its total production jumped 26.07% to 73,380 units in the month of February 2024 as compared with 58,203 units produced in the same period last year.

IRB Infrastructure Developers tumbled 5.77%. The company stated that its project SPV, IRB Lalitpur Tollway has achieved financial closure for a project in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh by tying up project finance of Rs 3,500 crore from the lender.

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