The Indian stock markets indicated a strong opening to the week as both benchmark indices, Sensex and Nifty, climbed high in the pre-open hour. While the BSE Sensex surged close to 350 points, the NSE Nifty50 jumped nearly 175 points as of 9:06 AM.

As markets opened, the indices continued to trade in the positive sentiment, backed by investors welcoming the Reserve Bank of India’s major repo rate cut announced on Friday.

As of 9:20 AM, the Sensex traded more than 300 points higher above 82,500, while the Nifty stood over 25,175, clocking a gain of 109 points. On the 30-share Sensex, Kotak Bank, Axis Bank, Tata Motors, Maruti, and Infosys emerged among the gainers. While the laggards in the session so far included Eternal, Bharti Airtel, ICICI Bank, and UltraTech Cement.

In the broader markets, the Nifty Smallcap50 led in green and stood 0.60 per cent higher. Sectorally, the Midsmall Financial Services and IT indices dominated and climbed 1.05 per cent and 1 per cent respectively.

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Global Markets

In Asian markets, indices in Japan, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and South Korea traded higher. Meanwhile, in the US markets, Dow Jones ended 1.05 per cent higher on Friday, while the S&P and Nasdaq settled with more than 1 per cent gains each. 

According to official exchange data, the foreign institutional investors (FIIs) infused Rs 1,009.71 crore in Indian equities on Friday. The global oil benchmark, Brent crude, slipped 0.11 per cent to touch $66.40 per barrel.

"The monetary bazooka fired by the RBI on Friday will keep the market spirits alive in the near-term. But this is not sufficient to sustain the rally triggered on Friday. More important is the trend in earnings growth. Q4 results indicate better earnings growth for midcaps. But large and small caps continue to struggle," explained VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Investments Limited.