The Indian equity benchmarks are set to stage a gap up opening on Monday, February 9, as indicated by GIFT NIFTY futures. NIFTY futures at GIFT City in Ahmedabad surged 190 points to 25,925 amid mixed cues from Asian markets.
The Indian equity benchmarks staged a strong recovery in intraday deals to end higher on Friday, February 6, led by gains in index heavyweights like ITC, Kotak Mahindra Bank, ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel, Hindustan Unilever and Reliance Industries.
The SENSEX rose as much as 687 points from the day’s lowest level and NIFTY50 index touched an intraday high of 25,703.95 after hitting a low of 25,491.90 earlier in the session.
The SENSEX ended 266 points higher at 83,580 and NIFTY50 index climbed 51 points to close at 25,694.
Here are key things to know before market opens:
Asian markets
Asian markets were trading higher after US stocks staged a rebound on Friday powered by gains in tech shares. Japan’s Nikkei rose as much as 4.5% to hit a record high of 57,337.07 after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi ‘s governing party secured a two-thirds supermajority in parliamentary elections, Japanese media reported, citing preliminary results.
The landslide victory was due, in large part, to the extraordinary popularity of Japan’s first female prime minister, and allows her to pursue a significant conservative shift in Japan’s security, immigration and other policies, news agency AP reported.
Wall Street update
The US stock market roared back on Friday, as technology stocks recovered much of their losses from earlier in the week and bitcoin halted its plunge, at least for now, according to a report by AP.
Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 2.47%, S&P 500 advanced 1.97% and tech heavy Nasdaq climbed 2.18%.
FII/DII activity
Foreign institutional investors bought shares worth ₹1,951 crore on Friday while domestic institutional investors sold shares worth ₹1,265 crore, data from the National Stock Exchange showed.
The FIIs have so far this month bought shares worth ₹8,129 crore, according to the data from National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL).
Stocks to watch
Q3 earnings today: A host of companies are slated to announce their December quarter earnings today. The list includes names such as BSE Ltd, Zydus Lifesciences, Aurobindo Pharma, Linde India, Pfizer, Bata India, Amber Enterprises India Limited, Graphite India, P N Gadgil Jewellers, Happy Forgings, Navin Fluorine International, and Cholamandalam Financial Holdings.
Apparel, footwear, and chemical stocks: These sector stocks will be in focus as India’s exports from labour-intensive sectors such as apparel, footwear, plastics, rubber, organic chemicals, and home decor will get a major fillip in the US market following a reduction in tariffs by the US under the interim trade pact.
India and the US announced on Saturday that they have reached a framework for the first phase of the bilateral trade agreement, under which both sides will reduce import duties on a number of goods to boost two-way trade.
According to a joint statement, the US will reduce tariffs on Indian goods to 18%. The US has removed the punitive 25% additional duty on Indian goods, and the 25% reciprocal tariffs are expected to be reduced to 18% soon.
The duties will be cut down on Indian goods, including textiles and apparel, leather and footwear, plastic and rubber, organic chemicals, home decor, artisanal products, and certain machinery.
Duties will also be reduced on gems, diamonds, and aircraft parts.
IDBI Bank: The government on Friday received financial bids for the strategic divestment of IDBI Bank, the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (Dipam) said in an official statement on X.
“Financial bids have been received for the strategic divestment of IDBI Bank.
“They will be evaluated as per the prescribed procedure,” Dipam said, without disclosing further details.
SBI: State Bank of India (SBI), India’s largest bank, will be in focus on Monday, February 9, as the banking behemoth on Saturday reported an all-time high profit of ₹21,028 crore in the December quarter of FY26 (Q3 FY26) on a standalone basis.
On a standalone basis, a special dividend by the IPO-bound asset management arm helped the country’s largest bank report a 24% jump in the net profit to ₹21,028 crore, its highest ever.
SBI Mutual Fund, which is preparing for an initial public offering (IPO), paid a ₹2,200 crore special dividend, which was cited by Chairman C S Setty as one of the reasons for the high profit growth.
Anant Raj: Shares of Anant Raj are expected to be in the spotlight on Monday, February 9, as the realty firm on Sunday said it has partnered with AI infrastructure provider Submer to develop data centres.
In a regulatory filing, the company stated that its subsidiary Anant Raj Cloud has partnered with Submer to “develop fully operational AI-ready data centres across India”.
The company said that a memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed.
PFC, REC: The Power Finance Corporation board on Friday gave in-principle approval for the merger of the non-banking finance company REC with itself.
Post-merger, PFC will continue to remain as a ‘government company’.
The board approval for the merger of PFC and REC came after an announcement made in this regard in the Budget on Sunday.
Earlier, pursuant to ‘In Principle’ approval of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), PFC acquired 52.63% of the government’s holding in REC Limited (REC) for ₹14,500 crore in March 2019.
Accordingly, REC has been operating as a subsidiary company of state-owned PFC.
Titan Company: Leading watchmaker Titan Company expects sales of luxury Swiss watches to rise sharply in India following the recent India-EU Free Trade Agreement, which has further lowered import duties on such products, said a top company official.
The Tata group firm, which operates Helios and Helios Luxe formats, said Swiss brands will become more competitive in the domestic market as they pass on duty benefits to consumers.
Its Swiss segment has been growing substantially and is in talks with more brands for its chain of Helios and Helios Luxe, Titan Watches Chief Sales & Marketing Officer Rahul Shukla told PTI.
Reliance Industries (RIL): Reliance Consumer Products Limited (RCPL), the FMCG arm of Reliance Industries Limited, has acquired a majority stake in Australia’s popular ‘Better-For-You’ beverage business Goodness Group Global Pty. Ltd. (GGG).
The deal marks RCPL’s entry into the burgeoning consumer goods market in Australia, while reaffirming its commitment to deliver ‘global quality at an affordable price’.
Under the Strategic Partnership, RCPL will help promote Goodness Group’s flagship healthy beverage brands like Nexba and PACE – a hydration brand co-created with Australian cricket captain Pat Cummins – across newer markets, including India, the press release added.
Tata Steel: Tata Steel on Friday posted a multifold jump in consolidated profit to ₹2,730.37 crore in the December quarter, on the back of increased income.
It had reported a profit of ₹295.49 crore in the October-December period of the preceding 2024-25 financial year, the company said in an exchange filing.
The company’s total income rose to ₹57,503.49 crore during the quarter from ₹53,869.33 crore in the year-ago period.
The Tata Steel group is among the country’s top global steel companies, with an annual crude steel capacity of 35 million tonnes per annum.
L&T: Infrastructure major Larsen & Toubro (L&T) plans to commission 18 MW of data centre capacity by March-end, taking its total operational capacity to 32 MW by the end of the current fiscal.
The total capital expenditure for the data centre stands at around ₹1,000 crore.
In the semiconductor business, L&T is focusing on design-led chips and engaging with multiple customers, with most spending being expensed through the profit and loss account, the company said during the Q3 earnings conference call.
As far as the electrolyser business is concerned, the company has developed a fully indigenous 4 MW stack and is upgrading it to 8-10 MW. It expects significant orders in the near term.
Sun Pharma: Sun Pharma will maintain a disciplined approach when it comes to acquisitions in order to allow the business to grow organically while remaining attractive for shareholders, according to Chairman Dilip Shanghvi.
The Mumbai-based drug major is also evaluating biosimilar segments, Shanghvi stated.
“I think the US continues to be an important part of our focus, specifically for innovative medicines,” Shanghvi said when asked about the company’s M&A strategy in an analyst call.
The company is interested in selling innovative medicines globally, Shanghvi added.
Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles: Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles Ltd (TMPVL) will hike prices in the “coming weeks” in the wake of rising commodity costs putting pressure, according to its Managing Director & CEO, Shailesh Chandra.
While Maruti Suzuki India is reviewing the situation for a possible price hike, Hyundai Motor India has already undertaken a price increase in January, mainly on the Venue model.
“Yes, we have been facing pressure on the commodity side for nearly a year now. Still, we see pressure on the precious metal side, copper, and so on. Overall, if you see the impact of commodity price increases, it has been for us about 2 per cent plus of our revenues,” Chandra said in a quarterly earnings call.
He was responding to a query on whether the company was planning to hike prices of its vehicles due to the rising cost of commodities.
Reiterating that the company is going to increase prices, Chandra said,”We will be able to announce this in the coming weeks.”