By Rituraj Baruah and Porisma P.Gogoi
Mumbai, April 21 (IANS) Forecast of normal monsoon rains, along with healthy earnings in the IT sector, lifted the Indian equity markets during the week ended Friday.
Besides, supportive global cues, coupled with expectations of healthy corporate earnings, led the two equity indices -- the BSE Sensex and the NSE Nifty50 -- to extend their rise for the fourth consecutive week.
However, higher crude oil prices, along with a weak rupee and heavy selling pressure in banking stocks -- triggered by a likely hawkish stand of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its next monetary policy review -- trimmed some gains of the benchmark indices, said market observers.
On a weekly basis, the barometer 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) of the BSE rose by 222.93 points or 0.65 per cent to close at 34,415.58 points.
The wider Nifty50 of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) closed trade at 10,564.05 points -- up 83.45 points or 0.80 per cent from its previous week's close.
"Markets extended their winning streak to the fourth consecutive week on strong earnings from TCS (Tata Consultancy Services), Mindtree and Cyient which posted a better than expected quarterly numbers," Prateek Jain, Director, Hem Securities, told IANS.
"Sentiments also got a boost from postive global clues and IMD's (India Meteorological Department) forecast that India is likely to receive a normal monsoon in 2018, which further boosted sentiments," said Jain.
Rahul Sharma, Senior Research Analyst, Equity99, said: "Investors' sentiment also got a boost after India's annual WPI-based inflation eased to 2.47 per cent in March, helped by a fall in food prices."
"Positive global stocks also supported buying," Sharma told IANS.
Official data released during market hours on Monday showed that India's Wholesale Price Index (WPI) inflation softened to 2.47 per cent in March from a rise of 2.48 per cent reported for February and acceleration of 5.11 per cent in the corresponding month of last year.
On the currency front, the rupee weakened by 92 paise to close at 66.13 against the dollar from its previous week's close at 65.21.
"The Indian currency got hammered and sank to a 13-month low of 66.06 against the dollar (during the week) due to rapid surge in global crude oil prices and fiscal deficit worries," D.K. Aggarwal, Chairman and MD of SMC Investments and Advisors, told IANS.
"The minutes of the last (previous) meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) indicated the RBI may shift to a hawkish monetary stance in June. At present, market participants looked little worried that the commodity will continue appreciating to new highs, which would spell trouble for Indian markets," Aggarwal added.
On the investment front, provisional figures from the stock exchanges showed that foreign institutional investors sold scrips worth Rs 2,821.24 crore, while the domestic institutional investors purchased stocks worth Rs 2,124.16 crore during the week.
Figures from the National Securities Depository (NSDL) revealed that foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) divested equities worth Rs 3,096.62 crore, or $471.78 million, during April 16-20.
"The top sectoral gainers were IT, metal, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) and realty indices and the major losers were PSU banks, energy and bank Nifty indices," Deepak Jasani, Head, Retail Research, HDFC Securities, told IANS.
On Friday, shares of IT bellwether Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) rose nearly seven per cent to touch a new high of Rs 3,414 per share, on the back of its robust earnings taking its market capitalisation (m-cap) to over Rs 6.50 lakh crore or around $98 billion.
The top weekly Sensex gainers were: TCS (up 8.11 per cent at Rs 3,406.40); Bharti Airtel (up 6.07 per cent at Rs 400.75); ITC (up 5.81 per cent at Rs 275.95); Power Grid (up 4.94 per cent at Rs 207.30); and Hindustan Unilever (up 3.96 per cent at Rs 1,465.50).
The losers were: Axis Bank (down 6.65 per cent at Rs 505.85); Tata Motors (DVR) (down 5.84 per cent at Rs 190.95); Tata Motors (down 5.72 per cent at Rs 336.25); State Bank of India (down 3.90 per cent at Rs 241.40); and IndusInd Bank (down 2.42 per cent at Rs 1,814.00).
(Riuraj Baruah can be contacted at rituraj.b@ians.in and Porisma P.Gogoi at porisma.g@ians.in)
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