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Indian shares are set to open higher on Thursday, tracking a global stocks rally after the U.S. Federal Reserve maintained its projection of three rate cuts this year.

The GIFT Nifty was trading at 22,082 as of 7:54 a.m. IST, indicating the Nifty 50 will open more than 200 points above Wednesday's close of 21,839.10.

Wall Street indexes advanced overnight, after the Fed kept rates unchanged as expected, and added the U.S. central bank stayed on track for three interest rate cuts this year.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that recent hot inflation readings had not changed the underlying story of slowly easing price pressures and reiterated the central bank's earlier forecast of soft landing for the world's largest economy.

The comments aided expectations of a rate cut in June, the odds of which rose to 77% from 59% a day ago, according to the CME's FedWatch Tool.

Asian markets opened higher on Thursday, with the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index gaining 1.6%.

India's shares had ended little changed on Wednesday.

U.S.-rate sensitive information technology sector will be in focus, after falling for four straight sessions.

Foreign portfolio investors sold Indian shares worth nearly 26 billion rupees (about $313 million) on a net basis on Wednesday. Domestic institutional investors bought a net 26.68 billion rupees of stocks.

STOCKS TO WATCH

** Wipro: Company appointed Anne-Marie Rowland as chief executive of company's unit Capco, effective from April 1, 2024.

** Torrent Power: Company entered into a share purchase agreement with Solapur Transmission to buy 100% stake in a special purpose vehicle to establish transmission of power from renewable energy projects in Maharashtra.

** Rail Vikas Nigam: Company emerged as the lowest bidder for project worth 1.67 billion rupees.

($1 = 83.0560 Indian rupees)