Opening bell: Markets open lower dragged by IT stocks; M&M and NTPC emerge as top Sensex gainers

On Wednesday, the equity benchmark indices opened lower amid mixed global cues. In the pre-opening session on Monday, Nifty futures on the Singapore Exchange traded 61.5 points, or 0.38%, lower at 16,166, signalling that Dalal Street was headed for a negative start on Monday. Oil prices were shaky with brent trading higher on supply concerns while WTI crude fell, owing to a balance of supply concerns against cautiousness about a recession or China's COVID-19 curbs hitting demand.

At the open, the Sensex was down 269.57 points or 0.49% at 54212.27, and the Nifty was down 83.10 points or 0.51% at 16137.50. About 950 shares have advanced, 927 shares declined, and 127 shares are unchanged. NTPC, Mahindra & Mahindra, IndusInd Bank, Powergrid Corporation of India and ICICI Bank were the top Sensex gainers whereas the top losers comprised of Bharati Airtel, TCS, Tech Mahindra, Wipro and HCL Technologies.

The shares of TCS are likely to be in focus in today’s trading session as the quarterly results for Q1FY23 showed that the company’s net profit grew 5.2% on a YoY basis and 2.5% on a QoQ basis to Rs 9,478 crore. On a YoY basis, the company recorded revenue growth of 16.2% amounting to Rs 52,758 crore. Meanwhile, Adani Group is in talks, as the company that plans to enter into the telecom spectrum race against Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel’s Sunil Mittal. The company participated in the auction of airwaves to provide 5G telecom services along with Jio, Airtel, and Vodafone Idea. Keep a watch on this stock for today’s trading session.

The broader markets were seen trading flat with BSE Mid Cap and Small Cap indices gaining 0.25% and 0.21%, respectively. On the sectoral front, most of the indices traded flat apart from Utilities and Power indices which zoomed beyond 2% and the IT index which traded under pressure and slipped up to 3% at the start of the trading session.