Markets surge in early trade on buying in IT stocks; Sensex jumps nearly 700 points

Stock market benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty surged in early trade on Friday, driven by a rally in IT firms after TCS reported an increase in its June-quarter net profit and guided towards an improvement in demand returning in the ongoing quarter.

Positive trend in global markets also drove the domestic equities higher during the initial trading.

The 30-share BSE Sensex jumped 694.83 points to 77,423.82 in early trade. The 50-share NSE Nifty surged 195.95 points to 24,154.85.

From the Sensex pack, HCL Tech, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Tech Mahindra, UltraTech Cement and Asian Paints were among the major winners.

TCS traded nearly 2% higher after the country's largest IT services company on Thursday reported a 4.61% increase in its June-quarter net profit to ₹ 13,349 crore, and guided towards an improvement in demand impacted by the West Asia crisis, returning in the ongoing quarter.

Bharti Airtel and Sun Pharma were the laggards.

In Asian markets, South Korea's Kospi jumped over 4%, Japan's Nikkei 225 index traded 1.91% higher, Shanghai's SSE Composite index was up 0.76% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index climbed 1.73%.

US markets ended higher on Thursday.

"Tensions in West Asia continue without any clarity of a resolution to the geopolitical crisis. However, interestingly, markets are largely ignoring these negative developments," VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Investments Limited, said. Global stock markets have completely ignored the renewed tensions, he said.

"This confident message from the market is significant. But investors have to be cautious, warranting monitoring of the developments," Vijayakumar added.

Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, quoted 0.33% higher at USD 76.55 per barrel.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth ₹ 532.86 crore on Thursday, according to exchange data.

On Thursday, the Sensex climbed 238.22 points, or 0.31%, to settle at 76,741.82. The Nifty went up by 80.75 points, or 0.34%, to end at 23,962.80.