Mumbai, India (BBN) - The Nifty and the Sensex rose for a third consecutive session on Wednesday to hit their highest in nearly 2-1/2 months, as financial stocks continued to rally on the back of quarterly results, while the sentiment was aided by optimism ahead of the federal budget.
At 1:53pm, the 30-share BSE index Sensex was up 193.53 points or 0.71 per cent at 27,569.11 and the 50-share NSE index Nifty was up 76.05 points or 0.9 per cent at 8,551.85, reports The Hindu Business Line.
Among BSE sectoral indices, consumer durables index gained the most by 1.64 per cent, followed by realty 1.54 per cent, banking 1.43 per cent and capital goods 1.2 per cent.
Top five Sensex gainers were HDFC Bank (+3.37 per cent), Adani Ports (+2.66 per cent), Axis Bank (+2.43 per cent),
Tata Steel (+1.56 per cent) and L&T (+1.5% per cent), while the major losers were Bharti Airtel (-2.8 per cent), Wipro (-1.39 per cent), Reliance (-0.73 per cent),
NTPC (-0.67 per cent) and Infosys (-0.54 per cent).
Strong earnings from lenders such as HDFC Bank this week have raised optimism that the impact of India's move to ban higher-value currency notes could be less than expected.
Still, analysts expect Union Budget, due on February 1, to provide incentives to some sectors to help support economic growth.
“Markets are generally getting excited about results declared by some finance companies as the numbers have not shown any major impact of demonetisation,” said Dipen Shah, senior vice president, public client group research, Kotak Securities.
Financials contributed to a majority of the gains on the NSE index, led by a 3 per cent rise in Housing Development Finance Corp.
Indian Overseas Bank and Bharat Financial Inclusion Ltd rose as much as 5.71 per cent and 7.82 per cent, respectively, after reporting results late on Tuesday.
Shares of Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd, IDFC Bank Ltd and Indian Bank Ltd were up more than 1.50 per cent each ahead of quarterly results later in the day.
Biocon Ltd rose as much as 5.21 per cent to its highest since January 12 after posting a 65 percent jump in third-quarter consolidated profit on Tuesday.
Among decliners, Bharti Airtel Ltd fell as much as 3.63 per cent after the company had on Tuesday reported its lowest profit in four years.
Asian stocks edged up to a three-month high on Wednesday, helped by a firm finish on Wall Street, while a rebound in the dollar looked vulnerable as some investors grew sceptical about US President Trump’s policies translating into further gains.
In Asia, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.1 per cent to its highest levels since late October.
Australia and Japan led regional stock markets higher.
A report by SMC Global said: "Asian stocks rallied following strong overnight cues from the Wall Street as stocks in Asia joined a global equities rally as corporate results reignited investors’ optimism in economic growth.
The European and US markets were up.
US indices surged the most in three weeks on Tuesday driven by robust corporate earnings and investors welcomed US President Donald Trump's eagerness to deliver on his campaign promises.
Sales of previously owned homes in US slipped in December, hurt by a lack of available homes.
The decline, which was slightly more than economists had predicted, took the figure off a multi-year high reached in the previous month.
The National Association of Realtors said existing home sales fell 2.8 per cent in December to reach an annual pace of 5.49 million units.
November's pace was revised slightly higher, to 5.65 million units.
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