Gift Nifty indicates strong start for Indian markets

Gift Nifty today: The Indian equity benchmarks are set to open higher on Thursday as indicated by Nifty Futures traded at Gift City in Gandhinagar. Gift nifty futures rose 115 points or 0.46 per cent to 25,196 amid stable cues from other Asian markets.

Most of the Asian markets were trading higher with Japan's Nikkei rising 0.2 per cent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng advanced 1.96 per cent, South Korea's KOSPI added 0.5 per cent and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index advanced 0.60 per cent.

Overnight, Wall Street stocks advanced on Wednesday with the S&P 500 and the Dow scoring record closing highs after the release of Federal Reserve meeting minutes and ahead of September inflation data and the earnings season.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 431.63 points, or 1.03 per cent, to 42,512.00. The S&P 500 gained 40.91 points, or 0.71 per cent, at 5,792.04 and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 108.70 points, or 0.60 per cent, to 18,291.62.

Back home, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth Rs 4,562.71 crore on Wednesday while domestic institutional investors bought shares worth Rs 3,508.61 crore, data from the National Stock Exchange showed.

FIIs have so far this month sold shares worth Rs 50,295 crore after they bought shares worth Rs 57,724 crore last month, NSDL data showed.

Stocks to Watch

Tata Consultancy Services: The India's largest IT services company will be in focus today as it will report its second quarter earnings later in the day.

RCF: Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers (RCF) has approved a contract worth Rs 1,000.3 crore to Larsen & Toubro for building a 1200 MTPD complex fertilizer plant at RCF, Thal. The project will be executed on an LSTK basis.

IRFC: The Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC) has appointed Manoj Kumar Dubey as an Additional Director, designating him as the Chairman and Managing Director. He will also serve as the CEO of IRFC for a tenure of five years.

GR Infraprojects: GR Infraprojects has received a Letter of Acceptance from the Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation for an undertaking worth Rs 903.53 crore. The scope includes design and construction of an elevated metro viaduct for the Nagpur Metro Rail Project.

Rain Industries: The subsidiary of Rain Industries, Rain Carbon, has signed a deal with the Northern Graphite Corporation to create and market advanced battery anode materials, used in lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles - a fast-growing market within the electric vehicle space.

Britannia Industries: The company has allied with Bel Group to manufacture cheese locally in India. From the just established plant at Ranjangaon in Maharashtra , the company will be producing 10,000 tons of "Britannia The Laughing Cow" cheese products annually to meet the ever-increasing demand from Indian consumers. This cheese plant, an investment of Rs 220 crore, is a joint venture.

PNC Infratech: PNC Infratech wins the L1 position for the EPC contract worth Rs 2,090.6 crore bagged by the company from the City & Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra (CIDCO) on the NAINA project. This includes developing 20-meter-wide roads with the construction of flyovers and bridges, streetlighting for TPS-8, 9, and TPS-12.

(With Reuters inputs)