Nifty climbs above 22,100; European stocks open higher

The key equity indices continued to extend gains in the afternoon trade. The Nifty marched above the 22,100 level. Barring the Nifty IT index, all the sectoral indices on the NSE traded in the green.

At 13:26 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 204.99 points or 0.28% to 72,846.18. The Nifty 50 index rose 93.20 points or 0.42% to 22,105.15.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index rose 0.38% and the S&P BSE Small-Cap index advanced 1.17%.

The market breadth was strong. On the BSE, 2,492 shares rose and 1,209 shares fell. A total of 117 shares were unchanged.

Gainers & Losers:

Maruti Suzuki India (up 4.17%), UPL (up 3.55%), Hero MotoCorp (up 3.34%), Bajaj Auto (up 2.70%) and Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (up 2.62%) were major Nifty gainers.

LTIMindtree (down 2.53%), Wipro (down 2.46%), Infosys (down 2.38%), HCL Technologies (down 2.21%) and Tata Consultancy Services (down 1.40%) were major Nifty losers.

Wipro declined 2.46%. Wipros step-down subsidiary, Wipro IT Services LLC has entered into an agreement with General Motors and Magna International, to incorporate a new entity i.e., SDVerse LLC. The said transaction has been completed on 20 March 2024.

Stocks in Spotlight:

L&T rose 0.17%. The meeting of the board of directors of the company is scheduled on 27 March 2024 to consider and approve fund raising including by way of debt issue.

Sarda Energy & Minerals zoomed 13.10% after the companys subsidiary joint venture Natural Resources Energy received the letter of intent (LoI) for composite licence for Surjagad-1 iron ore block in the state of Maharashtra.

Gensol Engineering was locked in upper circuit of 5% after it secured a turnkey EPC order from a leading power generation utility in Maharashtra worth Rs 520 crore.

Global Markets:

Markets in Europe advanced while Asian stocks traded mostly lower on Friday as investors assessed Federal Reserve's policy outcome.

Nikkei 225 crossed 41,000 to hit a fresh all-time high on Friday as Japan inflation accelerated in February. Japan's headline consumer price rose to 2.8% on year in February, from 2.2% in January.

U.S. stocks hit fresh records, continuing its rally after the U.S. Federal Reserve held rates steady and maintained its rate cut forecast for 2024.

The Bank of England kept its main interest rate unchanged at a 16-year high of 5.25% on Thursday even though inflation continues to drop from multi-decade peaks.

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