By Bharath Rajeswaran
BENGALURU (Reuters) -India’s blue-chip indexes, Nifty and Sensex inched towards fresh all-time highs on Friday, led by gains in IT services firms after their results and commentary exceeded expectations, alleviating concerns about weak demand.
The NSE Nifty 50 added 0.75% to 21,810.05 points, while the S&P BSE Sensex climbed 0.79% to 72,290.11, as of 10:37 a.m. IST.
Both the benchmarks were less than 0.5% shy of their respective all-time highs hit on Jan. 1.
Shares of Tata Consultancy Services climbed 4.3% and Infosys surged 7%, after reporting bigger-than-expected revenue in the third quarter. The rise powered the IT index about 5% higher.
“While we have not yet seen a recovery of sorts on the demand front for IT sector, the gradual pick-up in order inflows over the last couple of quarters is a positive,” said Pramod Gubbi, founder of Marcellus Investment Managers.
TCS’ third-quarter results indicated sustained strong margin execution, while a robust deal pipeline could contribute to a turnaround for Infosys in fiscal 2025, said Sandeep Shah and Deep Modi, analysts at Equirus Securities.
Infosys, TCS, Tech Mahindra, Wipro and HCLTech were the top five gainers on the Nifty 50 index, climbing between 3% and 7%.
HCLTech and Wipro will report their earnings later in the day.
Asian shares were muted, after data showed that U.S. consumer price inflation rose more than expected to 0.3% in December, leading to an annual gain of 3.4%. [MKTS/GLOB]
Investors also await domestic inflation data, due post market hours. India’s inflation likely rose in December but remained within the central bank’s target range, the data is expected to show.
Elevated inflation due to high food prices could keep the Reserve Bank on India on an extended rate pause, likely weighing on rate-sensitive sectors like consumer, real estate, and auto.
(Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran in Bengaluru; Editing by Varun H K and Dhanya Ann Thoppil)
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