Stocks soar to record high in opening trade

Benchmark indices, Sensex, Nifty, rise over 0.5% to touch peaks of 34,801.74 and 10,733.40 respectively in the opening trade today. 

The jump in Indian equity indices reflected the positive trend in most global markets and led by gains in shares of Housing Development Finance Corp and ICICI Bank.

Shares of IDFC Bank and Capital First rose as much as 3% and 6% each respectively after the boards of both the entities on Saturday approved a merger creating a lender, which will have a portfolio diversified across large corporate lending, small and medium enterprise loans and retail credit, said Indiainfoline report.

The 50-stock Nifty 50 also breached the 10,700-point barrier for the first time ever in early trade.

Telecom stocks, however, opened in red today as the telecom regulatory body moved to cut international call termination rates to 30 paise per minute. 

The TRAI decision is estimated to hurt Indian operators even more so in the face of tough competition.

Shares of the telecom operators opened with very little change to stock prices. Just a few minutes into the early trading session and the shares of the three listed companies – Airtel, Idea Cellular and Reliance Communication were down nearly 1%.

Airtel’s shares were down 0.39% or 2 points to trade at Rs 507.40 per share on BSE Sensex at 0921 hours.

Meanwhile, rupee rose by 23 paise to trade at 63.40 against the dollar in opening session today. It was reportedly helped by strong gains in domestic stocks and losses in the greenback in obverses markets.

The rupee opened strong at 63.45 at the interbank forex market against previous close of 63.63 per dollar as stocks soared to record levels after strong economic data, said an agency report.

The rupee moved in range of 63.4875 per dollar to 63.3900 per dollar in early session before quoting at 63.40, displaying strong gains of 23 paise against the greenback.

Earlier on Friday, Industrial production growth zoomed to a 17-month of 8.4 per cent in November 2017.