Comments
The Sensex and Nifty closed at their highest in nearly five months on Friday, posting their fourth consecutive weekly gain, driven higher by financial stocks such as HDFC Bank, which hit a record intraday high.
The benchmark BSE index closed 167.48 points or 0.59 per cent higher at 28,468.75. It was up 0.47 per cent on the week.
The broader NSE index rose 43.7 points or 0.50 per cent to 8,821.70.
It made a weekly gain of 0.32 per cent.
Both indexes posted their fourth consecutive weekly gains.
HDFC Bank
HDFC Bank, which rose as much as 9.5 per cent in early trade, however pared gains after the Reserve Bank of India banned fresh buying by foreign investors in the company following a temporary relief on Thursday.
Pharma stocks also rose with Sun Pharmaceutical Industries among top percentage gainers.
Idea Cellular, BHEL
Meanwhile, the operator of the NSE index had said on Thursday it would add Indian Oil Corp and Indiabulls Housing Finance as new constituents from March 31 and drop Idea Cellular Ltd and Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd.
Idea Cellular fell 3 per cent, while BHEL was down more than 1 per,cent.
Sectoral indices
Among BSE sectoral indices, healthcare index gained the most by 1.64 per cent, followed by oil & gas 1.38 per cent, banking 1.21 per cent and consumer durables 0.45 per cent. On the other hand, IT index was down 1.02 per cent, TECk 0.86 per cent, metal 0.68 per cent and auto 0.06 per cent.
Top five Sensex gainers were Sun Pharma (+4.03%), HDFC Bank (+3.75%), Cipla (+1.58%), Tata Motors (+1.53%) and ICICI Bank (+1.52%), while the major losers were TCS (-1.58%), Hero MotoCorp (-1.29%), Infosys (-1.21%), Wipro (-1.1%) and Asian Paints (-0.91%).
Asian shares
Asian stock markets took a breather on Friday from their recent surge as investors booked profits, while the dollar inched up after Thursday's slide and optimism over possible renewed supply cuts by OPEC lifted oil prices.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan pulled back 0.1 per cent, on track to end the week up 1.3 per cent, its fourth straight weekly gain.
US stocks
The Dow Jones Industrial Average scored its sixth straight record high on Thursday, but just barely, while the S&P 500 edged lower due to declining energy stocks.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended up 0.04 per cent to close at 20,619.77, its sixth straight record-high close. The S&P 500 had lost 0.09 per cent to 2,347.22 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.08 per cent to 5,814.90.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.