Nifty near 24,350 mark; IT shares advance; VIX drops 5.85%

The benchmark indices continued to trade with strong gains in mid-morning trade. The Nifty traded near the 24,350 mark. IT shares advanced after declining in the past trading session.

At 11:30 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 792.89 points or 1.01% to 79,684.08. The Nifty 50 index gained 233.85 points or 0.97% to 24,349.80.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index added 0.93% and the S&P BSE Small-Cap index rose 0.86%.

The market breadth was strong. On the BSE, 2,421 shares rose and 1,282 shares fell. A total of 137 shares were unchanged.

The NSE's India VIX, a gauge of the market's expectation of volatility over the near term, dropped 5.85% to 15.63.

Buzzing Index :

The Nifty IT index added 1.55% to 39,045.70. The index fell 1.95% in the past consecutive trading session.

Mphasis (up 4.21%), HCL Technologies (up 2.41%), Persistent Systems (up 2.29%), Tech Mahindra (up 1.96%), LTIMindtree (up 1.68%), Tata Consultancy Services (up 1.63%), L&T Technology Services (up 1.6%), Infosys (up 1.22%), Coforge (up 0.84%) and Wipro (up 0.72%) edged higher.

Stocks in Spotlight :

Steel Authority of India (SAIL) declined 1.56% after the company’s standalone net profit dropped 92.87% to Rs 10.68 crore in Q1 FY25 from Rs 149.83 crore in Q1 FY24. Revenue from operations fell 1.48% to Rs 23,997.78 crore during the quarter as compared with Rs 24,357.58 crore posted in same quarter last fiscal, the growth was affected by a decline in Net Sales Realization (NSR) in the domestic steel market due to cheap imports.

JSW Steel added 1.86% after the company said that its consolidated crude steel production for the month of July 2024 was at 22.15 lakh tonnes, which is higher by 9% as compared with the same period last year.

Container Corporation of India (CONCOR) shed 1.61%. The company reported 5.14% increase in consolidated net profit to Rs 258.17 crore in Q1 FY25 as compared to Rs 245.56 crore posted in Q1 FY24. Revenue from operations grew by 9.38% year on year (YoY) to Rs 2,103.13 crore during the quarter ended 30 June 2024.

Global Markets :

Asian shares surged on Friday, buoyed by a strong Wall Street performance.

Investor sentiment was lifted by China's release of July consumer price index data, which showed a modest increase and eased deflation concerns. The country's consumer prices rose 0.5% year-on-year last month. However, core CPI, excluding volatile food and energy items, cooled to 0.4% from 0.6% in June.

U.S. stocks surged on Thursday after the Labor Department reported a larger-than-expected drop in initial jobless claims to 233,000 for the week ended August 3. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.76%, the S&P 500 gained 2.30% and the Nasdaq Composite added 2.87%.