INDIA STOCKS-Indian shares advance tracking Asia; Q3 results in focus

(Adds analyst quote, updates index levels)

By Rama Venkat

BENGALURU, Jan 9 (Reuters) - Indian shares extended their early gains on Monday to rise more than 1%, aided by a broad risk-on sentiment in the region after U.S. data hinted at less aggressive rate hikes.

Meanwhile, investors turned their focus to corporate health as the domestic earnings season kicked off.

The Nifty 50 index climbed 1.28% to 18,088.60 as of 10:30 a.m. IST, while the S&P BSE Sensex rose 1.31% at 60,684.66. Both benchmark indexes posted their biggest intraday gains in two weeks.

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 Reserve's future rate hike decisions.

"As of now, the tone is likely to remain that of a 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 very decisive trend with the earnings season, especially in the U.S., for gains to sustain."

The tech-heavy Nasdaq-boosted domestic IT was up more than 2%, set to become the best-performing index among the other 13 major Nifty sectoral indexes, if gains hold.

Metals rose 1.6% on hopes of demand recovery after top metals consumer China reopened its borders.

In broader Asian equities, the MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 1.9% to a five-month high.

At home, IT major Tata Consultancy Services was up as much as 3% ahead of its third-quarter results, while Paytm advanced 4.2% after the digital payments firm said merchant payment volumes for the December quarter grew 38%.

($1 = 82.2700 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Rama Venkat in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee and Janane Venkatraman)