Equity indices extend Friday's rally but IT stocks lose

The rally on bourses continued during early hours on Monday with heavy buying by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) as well as domestic traders after the government on Friday announced big-bang fiscal stimulus on corporate tax cuts.

Equity indices also gained due to rationalisation of Goods and Services Tax for certain sectors. At 10:15 am, the BSE S & P Sensex was up by 783 points at 38,798 or 2 per cent while the Nifty 50 was 232 points higher at 11,507.

At the National Stock Exchange, all sectoral indices except for IT and pharma were in the positive territory with Nifty FMCG gaining by 4.8 per cent, private bank by 3.7 per cent, financial service by 2.9 per cent and auto by 2.5 per cent.

Among stocks, the prominent winner was ITC which moved up by 7 per cent to Rs 254.90 per share. GAIL, IndusInd Bank, Eicher Motors, Larsen & Toubro, Britannia and Asian Paints added gains of over 6 per cent while Titan, Adani Ports and Hindustan Lever were up by more than 5 per cent each.

However, IT scrips lost with Infosys down by 3.4 per cent, Wipro by 2 per cent, Tata Consultancy Services by 1.9 per cent, HCL Technologies and Tech Mahindra by 1.8 per cent each.

Meanwhile, most Asian share markets slipped as investors waited for more clarity on the US-China trade talks after recent negotiations. Oil prices rose by 1 per cent as Middle East tensions remained elevated.

China's blue-chip index was down by 1.5 per cent while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was 0.8 per cent weaker after a weekend of violent protests by pro-democracy activists.

South Korea's Kospi was a notch lower which left MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan down by 0.3 per cent.