BENGALURU, Jan 9 Reuters Indian shares settled higher on Monday, driven by broadbased gains for risky assets across regions after U.S. data hinted at less aggressive rate hikes and on hopes for global growth as China reopened its borders.

Later in the day, investors will turn their focus to corporate health as IT major Tata Consultancy Services kicks off the domestic earnings season.

Fortyfour of 50 stocks on the Nifty 50 posted gains, helping the benchmark index end 1.35 higher to 18,101.20. The 30member SP BSE Sensex settled 1.41 up at 60,747.31.

Both indexes posted their biggest intraday gains in nearly two months after logging a weekly loss of over 1 each in the first week of 2023.

Overnight gains on Wall Street on Friday helped the sentiment after U.S. payrolls expanded more than expected. This came even as wage increases slowed, easing worries about the Federal Reserve39;s future rate hike decisions.

As of now, the tone is likely to remain that of consolidation for the key indexes, said Ajit Mishra, VP, technical research at Religare Broking.

The bias will be slightly on the negative side until we see a decisive trend with the earnings season, especially the U.S., for gains to sustain.

The MSCI39;s broadest index of AsiaPacific shares outside Japan hit a fivemonth high, while European shares extended gains.

In domestic trading, IT advanced 2.83, making it the bestperforming sector among the other 13 major Nifty sectoral indexes. The quarterly earnings…