Markets Open Higher As Global Cues Strong

Benchmark indices opened the day strong as global cues continue to remain robust with Wall Street's main indexes and the Dow hit a record high on Wednesday. This pushed Asian markets too higher with the Nikkei 225 rallying near 2% while the Topix index was up 1.95%. South Korea's Kospi and the Hong Kong's Hang Sang was also trading with gains.

The Sensex was more subdued compared to other markets, as Covid-19 infections continued to weigh on sentiments. The Sensex was up 80 points, while the Nifty was higher by 26 points in trade.

Among the early gainers in trade were Adani Ports, Cipla, Bajaj Finance, ONGC and Coal India. The stocks from the Nifty that fell were UPL, Tata Steel, HCL Tech and Bharti Airtel.

Shares in Tata Steel were higher after the company reported a solid set of quarterly numbers. The company posted a net profit at Rs 6,644.1 crore in Q4FY21 against loss of Rs 1,481.3 crore.

Shares in Shalby dropped after the company reported net profit at Rs 9.77 crore in Q4FY21 against loss of Rs 17.1 crore in Q4FY20. The stock was down almost 3 per cent in trade.

Markets are increasingly, getting worried about Covid-19 infections. "The market is getting a little nervous with the rising Covid cases. India's popular index Sensex closed in the red for April. In the last few months, every month's high of Sensex was higher than the high of the previous month, and the low of this month was higher than the low of the previous month. But this trend was broken in April. We saw Sensex high of April is lower than high of March and low is lower than March's. This data does suggest that undercurrent has turned weak. Indian stock indices YTD is struggling to remain green," Geojit has said in a note.