Sensex @ 28,000: Overnight US market rally, local IT shares perk up sentiment

Mirroring overnight gains in the US market, shares in the domestic market rose sharply in early trade Tuesday, with the benchmark Sensex reclaiming the 28,000-mark mainly aided by a rally in information technology shares, said dealers. At 10.50 am, the 30-share BSE S&P Sensex was at 28,011.07, up 132.80 or 0.5 percent from previous close. The broader 50-share CNX Nifty was at 8,518.15, up 40.85 points, or 0.5 percent. [caption id=“attachment_2396662” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Reuters[/caption] Market breadth was positive with 1,563 stocks advancing against 619 declines on BSE. On Monday, key US gauges such as Dow Jones and Nasdaq ended 0.4 percent and 0.9 percent higher, respectively boosted by strong US housing data. Investors back home once again resorted to buying in local software shares amid the persisting rupee’s depreciation against the dollar. On Monday, the rupee slipped to a fresh two-year low of 65.34/$ giving investors a reason to cheer as a sliding rupee boosts software companies’ earnings growth, whose large chunk of the earnings is derived from the US clients. Among the gainers in the IT space, shares of HCL Infosys shot up 3.4 percent to Rs 46.65, Infosys rose 2.9 percent to Rs 1,175, TCS advanced 2.1 percent to Rs 2,741.50 and Wipro was up 1.8 percent at Rs 586.60. Large-cap IT companies such as Infosys posted a strong first quarter earnings that beat market estimates as key parameters such as a rise in client addition and improving US economic scenario aided sentiment. Besides this, a major fall in rupee against the greenback in the past one week augurs well for an export-oriented industry such as the IT. Among other Sensex gainers, shares of Tata Steel jumped 2.9 percent to Rs 253.70, SBI moved up 2.3 percent to Rs 285.60, Vedanta gained 1.7 percent to Rs 107.05 and Hindalco was up 1.2 percent at Rs 1,368.60.