Benchmark indices are trading flat with a negative bias as the advance in IT shares is being offset by losses in auto shares which are down on weak Ocotber sales data.

At 9:17 AM, Sensex was down 19 points at 27,846 while Nifty was down 8 points at 8315.

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.

Benchmark indices have opened at record high levels on Friday on the back of firm global cues and and heavy FII buying. Also, the government's announcement of FDI norms for real estate sector boosted investor sentiment

At 9:40AM, the 30-share Sensex is up 198 points at 27,544 and the 50-share Nifty has gained 57 points at 8,226.

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.

India’s largest information technology services provider, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), has, for the first time, made it to The Boston Consulting Group(BCG)’s top 50 most innovative companies of 2014 across the globe. TCS is the only Indian company to have made it to the list.

This is not all. Bangalore-based Wipro is ranked fifth among the top 10 up and coming companies that have the potential to join the Top 50 Most Innovative Companies in the world.

Five Tata group managing directors on Monday called on West Bengal Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, to discuss about their respective companies. The managing directors- Rana Sinha of Tata Hitachi Construction Machinery Company, Dibyendu Bose of TM International Logistics Limited, Sandipan Chakravortty of Tata Steel Processing and Distribution Limited, Viresh Oberoi of mjunction, and Sanjiv Paul of Tata Metaliks - met at Nabanna, the makeshift state secretariat. Finance and industry minister, Amit Mitra, was also present.

This was just a follow-up meet after Chief Minister's Bijoya Sammilani. She had asked us whether there were any issues. So this meeting was organised to discuss the future of manufacturing, Tata Hitachi managing director, Rana Sinha said.

MUMBAI: At any gathering of brokers, analysts and investors, a major part of the conversation currently revolves around the new government and its policies. Thursday evening's Muhurat trading session at P J Towers, the headquarters of BSE in south Mumbai, which saw the sensex closing 64 points higher at 26,851, was no different.

Even though its recently-announced second-quarter numbers disappointed the Street, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest information-technology services company, managed to hold on to its margin estimate. The firm managed to do it despite a volatile cross-currency movement and the consolidation of its joint venture in Japan.

Rajesh Gopinath, chief financial officer of TCS, is confident that for the next two quarters, the company will be able to maintain its margin in the 26-28 per cent band subject to currency volatility. He added TCS would continue its strategy of reinvesting into business, and would rework the strategy once currency is stable.

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.

Tata Consultancy Services, the country’s largest information technology services provider, will hire 35,000 from college campuses for 2015-16, for which it will visit 350-400 institutes. This is higher by 10,000 from the campus hiring it did for FY15.

TCS is the only IT company so far that has announced its FY16 hiring target numbers.

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