Markets open with gains, tracking strong Asian stocks' cues

MUMBAI: Domestic equity markets made gains on Monday morning, tracking strong Asian stocks cues. Indices on Monday surged after being volatile in pre-opening sessions of both BSE and NSE. BSE Sensex surged 77 points to 60,917.87 while Nifty 50 went up 25 points to 18,130.35 at 9.27 am on Monday.

Some of the most active stocks on BSE that went up in morning trade were Tata Communications, Lloyd, Usha Mart, Timken and Kalpataru Power while MCX, Jindal Poly, Shipping Corporation of India and Triveni Turbine were among the laggards on the exchange.

Among all the stocks that surged on Monday morning, Tata Steel, Hindalco, Tata Motors, JSW Steel and Brittania were the most active on NSE while Asian Paints, Bajaj Auto, Sun Pharma and Bajaj Finance were some of the laggards.

In Asian markets, Japan's Nikkei was trading in the green, Hong Kong's Hang Seng was up 40 points, China's Shanghai went up 15 points while S&P ASX was up 24 points in the morning trade of Monday.

In European markets, FTSE was trading in the red and ended with 61 points down, CAC was trading in the green, Deutsche declined 148 points while Refinitiv Europe ended in negative. Major European and US markets will also remain shut on Monday, observing the new year holiday.

In American markets, Dow Jones settled with 73 points down, Nasdaq declined 11 points, S&P lost 9 points while Refinitiv United States settled in the red as Asian markets opened on Monday morning.

S&P BSE Sensex on Friday declined 293.14 points or 0.48 per cent to 60,840.74. The Nifty 50 index lost 85.70 points or 0.47 per cent to 18,105.30. Both the indices rose about 4.4 per cent in the past one year. PSU banks, realty and metal shares bucked the trend while private banks, fast-moving consumer goods and financial shares declined.

On Friday, Indian rupee edged higher against the dollar. The partially convertible rupee was hovering at 82.73, compared with its close of 82.87 during the previous trading session.

Eicher Motors fell 1.55 per cent on Friday. The company's board approved an investment of 50 million euros, or close to 10.35 per cent equity stake, in Stark Future. RIL rose 0.22 per cent on Friday while Lotus Chocolate Company hit an upper circuit of 5 per cent. Reliance Retail Ventures' wholly-owned subsidiary arm -- Reliance Consumer Products (RCPL)-- will acquire 51 per cent controlling stake in Lotus Chocolate Company for Rs 74 crore. Separately, RIL informed that Reliance Jio announced the launch of its True 5G services in Indore and Bhopal.

NTPC fell 0.18 per cent on Friday. The state-run power major said that it declared commercial operation of first part capacity of 10 megawatt (MW) out of 23 MW Solapur Solar PV project at Maharashtra with effect from 00:00 hrs of December 2022.

Cipla declined 0.95 per cent on Friday. The drug major said its wholly-owned UK subsidiary, Cipla (EU), has signed definitive agreements for equity investment of EUR15 million in Ethris.

HG Infra Engineering jumped 6.94 per cent on Friday. The company has received a letter of award (LoA) from the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for a project in the state of Haryana on hybrid annuity mode.