By Rituraj Baruah
Mumbai, June 2 (IANS) A healthy rise in the country's GDP, along with predictions of a normal monsoon and easing crude oil prices fuelled a nearly one per cent rise in the key Indian equity indices during the just concluded trade week.
Accordingly, the two key indices -- NSE Nifty50 and the S&P BSE Sensex -- ended on a positive note for the second consecutive week.
However, geo-political tensions and resurgent concerns over a trade war between the US and China kept the global markets largely volatile and had a cascading impact on the domestic bourses.
Nonetheless, the barometer 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) of the BSE rose by 302.39 points or 0.87 per cent to close at 35,227.26 points on a weekly basis.
The wider Nifty50 of the NSE closed the week's trade at 10,696.20 points -- up 91.05 points or 0.86 per cent -- from its previous close.
Despite the indices' northward trajectory, market breadth was negative in four out of the five trading sessions of the week, analysts said.
"Markets ended the week building on with modest gains after a sharp bounce back from the lows of 10,417 towards the end of the previous week," said Deepak Jasani, Head, Retail Research, HDFC Securities.
"It was thus the second consecutive week of gains for the Nifty after the sharp correction seen recently."
Hem Securities' Director Prateek Jain said: "Falling crude oil prices helped equity markets to gather steam in the later part of the week. Development in Italy and Euro zone caused a scare but thankfully it was resolved soon and the market resumed its rally higher."
According to Jain, on the currency front, easing crude oil prices resulted in appreciation of the rupee.
The rupee strengthened by 72 paise to close at 67.06 against the US dollar from its previous week's close of 67.78 per greenback.
In terms of investments, provisional figures from the stock exchanges showed that foreign institutional investors sold scrips worth Rs 2,707.41 crore, while the domestic institutional investors purchased stocks worth Rs 2,160.44 crore during the week.
Figures from the National Securities Depository (NSDL) revealed that foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) divested equities worth Rs 2,756.63 crore, or $405.08 million, in the week ended June 1.
Sector-wise, the top gainers were the auto, banking and energy stocks. The top losers were media, IT and realty indices, Jasani said.
The top weekly Sensex gainers were Coal India (up 6.56 per cent at Rs 294.15); Mahindra and Mahindra (up 5.16 per cent at Rs 901.55); HDFC Bank (up 4.87 per cent at Rs 2,109.55); Bajaj Auto (up 4.83 per cent at Rs 2,893.25); and Sun Pharma (up 3.50 per cent at Rs 482.90 per share).
The major losers were Tata Consultancy Services (down 3.48 per cent at Rs 1732.25); Power Grid (down 2.85 per cent at Rs 205.90); Tata Motors (down 2.38 per cent at Rs 287.20); ICICI Bank (down 2.36 per cent at Rs 289.50); and Wipro (down 1.70 per cent at Rs 260.45 per share).
(Rituraj Baruah can be contacted at rituraj.b@ians.in)
