Mumbai: The Sensex and Nifty on Friday hit a new high for the second consecutive day on hopes that further reforms by the government may attract more investment from foreign as well as domestic institutional investors. This is the fourth consecutive day of gains for the benchmark indices.

Investors also think that reforms will help narrow fiscal deficit.

Markets edged higher after the first hour of trade led by IT exporters after the US Federal Reserve Bank at its two-day meet which ended Wednesday remained confident that the economy is on a growth track

At 10:35AM, the 30-share Sensex was up 57 points at 27,155 and the 50-share Nifty was up 21 points at 8,111.

Displaying Infosys's new-found confidence and aggression under a new management, Chief Operating Officer U B Pravin Rao on Tuesday said the company was ready to make large acquisitions, adding it was considering a few in strategic areas and regions.

Rao said Infosys was open to acquiring companies with annual revenue of $600-700 million and wasn't averse to bigger acquisitions. There is no constraint (on how much the company will pay for acquisitions). At the end of the day, if it is in line with our strategy, if we think it will add value to our strategy and give us time-to-market advantage, we are pretty confident we want to do it, he told Business Standard.

The finance ministry has alleged that IT firm Infosys has committed “serious irregularities” at a Special Economic Zone in Chandigarh and also availed undue tax concessions and exemptions.

The revenue department has prepared a detailed report highlighting the alleged irregularities committed by Infosys in its Rajiv Gandhi Chandigarh Technology Park (RGCTP) SEZ in Chandigarh.

MUMBAI|BANGALORE: After a few tepid years at college campuses, information technology companies are back to hiring in big numbers as Tata Consultancy Services BSE -8.73 %, Infosys BSE -0.30 % and HCL Technologies BSE -9.09 % ramp up recruitment. This is good news to the over 1.5 million engineers who graduate from the country's colleges every year and are struggling to land a job due to an oversupply of talent. Tata Consultancy Services, India's largest IT services company , said it will hire 35,000 freshers for fiscal 2016, boosting its rate of campus recruitment.The company hired 25,000 from campuses in fiscal 2015. Robust growth prospects led to the company raising the figure, TCS' human resources head Ajoy Mukherjee told ET.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs)’ stake in Infosys is nearing historic highs. During the quarter ended September, they bought 6.38 million Infosys shares for Rs 2,236 crore, raising their stake 1.1 per cent, data show. The number of FIIs holding stake in the company has risen from 912 at the end of June to 926 at the end of September. As of September-end 2013, 808 FIIs held stake in the company; the number stood at 778 a year earlier.

Recently, the stock hit a lifetime high. Also, the company announced 1:1 bonus shares to shareholders, including those holding American depository receipts, after a gap of eight years. Life Insurance Corporation of India has increased its stake in Infosys from 3.82 per cent at the end of June to 4.45 per cent in September, acquiring 3.62 million shares (0.63 per cent stake) for Rs 1,270 crore. Retail investors, however, booked profits on every rise, with their holding in the company nearing a decadal low. Individual investors’ stake declined from 9.32 per cent in June to 9.06 per cent in September.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India's largest information technology services company, continued with its strong financial performance to post 13.6 per cent annual net profit growth in the July-September quarter.

By International Financial Reporting Standards, or IFRS, the company's revenue rose by 13.5 per cent on a year-on-year basis to Rs 23,816 crore and net profit by 13.6 per cent to Rs 5,288 crore. On a sequential basis the rates of growth in revenue and net profit were 7.7 per cent and 4.6 per cent, respectively.

Markets continued to trade flat with negativc bias weighed down by profit taking in IT majors after recent gains post upbeat earnings from Infosys and index heavyweight ITC.

At 10:30AM, the 30-share Sensex was down 42 points at 26,342 and the 50-share Nifty was down 17 points at 7,868.

Infosys is trading higher by nearly 2% at Rs 3,952, extending its Friday’s nearly 7% rally, after the company reported a better-than-expected consolidated net profit at Rs 3,096 crore for the second quarter ended September 30, 2014 (Q2) besides declaring 1:1 bonus.

The stock opened at Rs 3,898 and hit new high of Rs 3,959 on National Stock Exchange (NSE). A combined 1.92 million shares changed hands on the counter so far on NSE and BSE.

N R Narayana Murthy, co-founder and former chairman of Infosys, has decided to step down from all positions at the information technology (IT) company, but some measures he had initiated seem paying off. The Bangalore-based company on Friday posted all-round growth beating the estimates on many counts.

On joining Infosys in his second innings in 2013, Murthy had initiated a three-pronged strategy: Cost-rationalisation (which he said would start yielding results in six-18 months), sales effectiveness (which would take nine-21 months to show results) and delivery effectiveness (benefits from which would be visible in 18-24 months). Starting October 10, Murthy will no longer be the non-executive chairman.

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