The Indian stock market is trading on a positive note with Sensex up 168.27 points or 0.34 percent at 49566.56, and the Nifty adding 57.30 points or 0.39 percent at 14578.50.
Among the sectors, the IT index gained over 2 percent led by Info Edge which jumped over 5 percent followed by Coforge, HCL Tech, Infosys, Mindtree, Mpahsis, Tech Mahindra and Wipro.
Heavyweights such as Infosys and TCS are trading in the green after the IT majors declared their Q3 numbers.
Consolidated profit of Infosys grew by 7.3 percent sequentially to Rs 5,197 crore, while its earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) increased 5.8 percent quarter-on-quarter to Rs 6,589 crore with margin expansion at 25.4 percent (against 25.3 percent QoQ) for the December quarter.
The company has raised its FY21 revenue growth guidance to 4.5-5 percent in constant currency, as well as operating margin guidance to 24.0-24.5 percent on the back of continued strong performance, which was much better than the CNBC-TV18 poll estimates of 2-3 percent and 23-24 percent, respectively.
As in the case of TCS, consolidated net profit of Rs 8,701 crore for the quarter ended December 2020 rose 7.2 percent sequentially, backed by strong demand-led revenue growth. Jefferies has maintained “buy”, with a target at Rs 3,720. HSBC has maintained hold but raised the target to Rs 3,200 from Rs 3,050.
Brokerage firm Motilal Oswal has a buy rating on HCL Technologies with target at Rs 1,300. It is of the view that broad-based sequential growth, coupled with healthy deal wins and a robust pipeline, indicates an improved outlook.
“We estimate strong performance in the Products business driven by HCLT’s capabilities to rightly align and sell these products. Given its deep capabilities in the IMS space and strategic partnerships, investments in Cloud, and Digital capabilities, we expect HCLT to emerge stronger on the back of an expected increase in enterprise demand for these services. The stock is currently trading at a modest ~15x FY23E earnings, which offers a margin of safety,” it said.
Wipro was one of the most active stock on NSE in terms of value on NSE with 1,23,90,768 share sbeing traded followed by TCS (14,09,091) and Infosys (31,72,746).
Tata Elxsi and Tata Consultancy Services hit new 52-week high on NSE.
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