The Indian IT stocks defied the negative market trend on December 12 with the Nifty IT index soaring past 46,000 for the first time post-in-line U.S. inflation data, which reinforced expectations of a Federal Reserve rate cut next week.

A US Fed cut cope is a positive development for India's information technology companies, which earn a significant share of their revenue from the United States.

"Positive cues come from the US, where CPI inflation aligned with expectations, fuelled bets of a 25 bps rate cut by the Federal Reserve on December 18," Prashanth Tapse, Senior VP (Research), Mehta Equities Ltd, said.

The Nifty IT gained 1.43 percent in Thursday's trading session to touch the 52-week high of 46,002.65. All 10 components of the index advanced up to 4 percent with major gains led by Coforge, Tech Mahindra, and LTIMindtree among others.

The big rally in the domestic IT scrips was seen a day after the Nasdaq had set a new record by closing above 20,000 yesterday.

Nifty IT was the only index trading in green at around 10:30 AM, while all the indices were in red. Nifty Private Banks was trading flat with a gain of 0.3 percent in the morning trade.

"The strength of the mother market, which indicates that the global market rally is intact, is a support for other markets too," noted Dr. V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services, adding "Even though the US CPI inflation in November at 2.7% has come a bit above the October numbers, this was on expected lines and, therefore, the expectation of a 25 bps rate cut by the Fed is intact."

IT majors Coforge, Tech Mahindra, LTIMindtree, Persistent Systems, and Tata Consultancy Services were the top five Nifty gainers in today's trading session.

IT heavyweight TCS stock gained after two days of consecutive fall to quote at Rs 4,470 per share on the NSE, higher by 0.96 percent. Intraday, it hit a high of Rs 4,485 apiece, up 1.29 percent.

Coforge led the gains to hit the fresh 52-week high of Rs 9,351 on the NSE, rising nearly 4 percent. At around 10:50 AM, the stock was trading at Rs 9,286.80 apiece on the NSE, up 3.23 percent.

Tech Mahindra stock also hit a fresh 52-week high of Rs 1,807.70 per share on the NSE, jumping 2.54 percent.

LTIMindtree and Persistent Systems also hit the fresh 52-week highs, rising up to 2.05 percent and 2.34 percent, respectively.

While the cues from the U.S. are positive for domestic equities, "the indecision on the benchmark will continue to prevail as the resistance near current levels remains strong," Akshay Chinchalkar, head of research at Axis Securities told Reuters.

The benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty traded under pressure on Thursday. The 30-share BSE benchmark Sensex declined 52.06 points to 81,474.08 in early trade. The NSE Nifty was down 34 points to 24,607.80.