After opening the day on a positive note, Indian share markets gained momentum as the session progressed and ended on firm footing.

Indian benchmark indices scaled fresh highs on Friday tracking a faster-than-expected growth in India's GDP and positive global cues.

The National Stock Exchange (NSE) and Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) have announced a special live trading session scheduled for Saturday, 2 March 2024. The special live trading session on March 2 will be executed in two phases. The first phase, lasting 45 minutes, will commence at 9:15 am. Subsequently, the second session will start at 11:30 am and conclude at 12:30 pm

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood higher by 1,245 points (up 1.7%).

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty closed higher by 356 points (up 1.5%).

Tata Stee, JSW Steel, and BPCL were among the top gainers today.

Sun Pharma, HCL Tech, and Infosys on the other hand, were among the top losers today.

The GIFT Nifty was trading at 21,889, up by 350 points, at the time of writing.

The BSE MidCap index ended 0.9% higher and the BSE SmallCap index ended 0.7% higher.

Barring the healthcare sector, other sectoral indices are trading on a positive note, with socks in the metal sector, capital goods sector, and auto sector witnessing the most buying.

Shares of Tata Investment, M&M, and Grasim hit their respective 52-week highs today.

Asian share markets ended mixed. The Shanghai Composite rose 0.4% while the Nikkei gained 1.9%.

The rupee is trading at 82.9 against the US$.

Gold prices for the latest contract on MCX are trading flat at Rs 62,570 per 10 grams.

Meanwhile, silver prices were trading flat at Rs 71,255 per 1 kg.

Here are four reasons why Indian Markets are rising today

#1 Solid GDP Print

Indian economy grew 8.4% in the October-December quarter, the fastest pace in six quarters and also above estimates, aided by robust manufacturing and construction activity, data showed post-market hours on Thursday.

#2 Upbeat Global Markets

Wall Street equities closed higher overnight, with S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite settling at record highs after in-line US inflation reading kept intact the likelihood of a June interest rate cut.

Meanwhile, Japan's Nikkei hit a fresh record high on Friday, buoyed by the bounce on Wall Street as a key US inflation reading was in line with expectations, while markets elsewhere in Asia were more subdued on China's still-uncertain economic outlook.

#3 FII Buying

Foreign investors net bought shares worth Rs 35.7 bn on Thursday, while domestic institutional investors sold shares worth Rs 2.3 bn. They bought Indian equities worth Rs 51.1 bn in February, after pulling over Rs 250 bn out of the domestic stock market in the previous month.

Meanwhile, in the past 10 years, foreign investors have been buyers of domestic stocks in March on eight occasions and sellers on two.

#4 US Fed Rate Cut Buzz

After the surprise US inflation data, the buzz for the US Fed rate cut is gaining momentum. Hence, the US treasury yields are expected to come down and people are expected to shift money from bonds and currency market to other assets.
 

Tata Investment Corporation shares are up 4%. Here's why

In news from the finance sector, Tata Investment Corporation shares gained 4% today, a day after the Union Cabinet approved three semiconductor plant proposals, two of which would be set up by Tata group.

Two of the three plants will be built in Gujarat and one in Assam at an estimated cost of Rs 1.3 tn.

The Tata group will set up plants in Gujarat and Assam, while Murugappa Group-owned CG Power will set up a plant in Gujarat. The construction of the three plants will begin within 100 days.

Tata Investment Corporation is an NBFC that invests in the diversified portfolios of various companies, including those of the Tata group.

The Cabinet also approved Tata Semiconductor Assembly and Test Pvt Ltd's chip assembly and testing unit in Assam at an investment of Rs 270 bn.

The country's first fab, with a 50,000 wafers per month capacity, will be set up by Tata Electronics in partnership with PSMC, Taiwan. This fab will be constructed in Dholera, Gujarat at an investment of Rs 910 bn.

PSMC is renowned for its expertise in logic and memory foundry segments and has six semiconductor foundries in Taiwan.

The chips will be high-performance compute chips with 28 nm technology.

These are power management chips for electric vehicles (EV), telecom, defence, automotive, consumer electronics, display, power electronics, etc. Power management chips are high voltage, high current applications.

The second unit in Assam will be set up by Tata Semiconductor Assembly and Test Pvt Ltd (TSAT) will set up a semiconductor unit in Morigaon, Assam.

TSAT semiconductor is developing indigenous advanced semiconductor packaging technologies, including flip chip and ISIP (integrated system in package) technologies.

Having delivered multibagger returns in 2023, will Tata Investment Corporation continue their good run in 2024. 

Suven Pharma Zooms 12%

Moving on to news from the pharma sector, shares of Suven Pharma jumped 12% a day after the firm announced a scheme of amalgamation for a merger with Cohance Lifesciences.

The transaction is expected to conclude over next the 12-15 months, subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals.

Cohance is a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) and merchant Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) platform with global leadership in select low-mid volume molecules as well as unique capabilities in the form of its antibody-drug conjugates (ADC) platform.

The merger will establish Suven as a diversified CDMO and API leader in India, expanding its revenue base.

The merged entity is expected to be amongst the leading integrated CDMO players in India.

With an expanded capacity of 2,650 kL and a significantly broadened customer base, scale and synergy benefits would be substantial.

Upon the scheme becoming effective, all shareholders of Cohance will be issued shares of Suven in the ratio of 11 shares of Suven for every 295 shares of Cohance, based on the swap ratio. The new shares of Suven will trade on NSE as well as BSE.

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