Equities ride bulls on easing geo-political risks, industry data

Mumbai, Sep 16 : Boosted by positive global cues on the back of easing geo-political concerns, healthy domestic industrial production data and persistent pumping in of funds by domestic investors, Indian equity markets rode the bulls during the week ended Friday.

The two key Indian equity indices -- the BSE Sensex and the NSE Nifty -- reclaimed their psychologically important 32,000 and 10,000 levels. Despite that, the equity markets ended the week on a muted note as investors booked profits.

On a weekly basis, the 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) of the BSE surged by 585.09 points or 1.85 per cent to close the week at 32,272.61 points.

Meanwhile, the Nifty50 of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) closed at 10,085.40 points, up 150.6 points or 1.52 per cent.

"Nifty rallied this week after breaking out of the 9,740-9,988 trading range. Sectorally, the top gainers were the pharma, media and infra indices. There were no losers," Deepak Jasani, Head - Retail Research, HDFC Securities, told IANS.

Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services, said: "This week, market emerged out of the consolidation phase on account of continued uptrend in global market as geo-political risks eased out."

"Additionally, domestic economic data supported this positive trend. Nifty made a high of 10,132. However, continued FII (foreign institutional investors) selling, lack of fresh triggers and expectation of tighter liquidity led the market to trade in a range bound manner," Nair added.

Provisional figures from the stock exchanges showed that FIIs continued with their selling spree and offloaded stocks worth Rs 3,365.4 crore during the week.

However, the outflow was offset by continous injection of funds by the domestic institutional investors, who bought scrips worth Rs 3,835.21 crore.

Figures from the National Securities Depository (NSDL) revealed that foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) divested equities worth Rs 119.46 crore, or $18.79 million, during September 11-15.

During the week, the Indian rupee weakened by 28-29 paise to close the week at 64.07-08 to a US dollar from its previous week's close at 63.79.

According to D.K. Aggarwal, Chairman and Managing Director, SMC Investments and Advisors, global stock market got pulled back from record highs after disclosure of weaker-than-expected Chinese economic data.

"The sentiments got further weakened after North Korea test-fired another ballistic missile... European stock markets were mixed as market participant assessed geo-political developments and looked ahead to the Bank of England's latest policy decision," Aggarwal told IANS.

"Back at home, domestic ended the volatile session amid tepid global cues due to disappointing China's economic data and as fresh missile launch by North Korea weighed," he added.

Official data released during the week showed that factory output (Index of Industrial Production) in July rose by 1.2 per cent as compared to the same month of last year, whereas August's consumer price index (CPI) inflation shot up a full one percentage point to 3.36 per cent.

"Higher prices of food and fuel products drove inflation based on wholesale price index (WPI) to a four-month high of 3.24 per cent in August even as experts said the rise is in expected lines," said Dhruv Desai, Director and Chief Operating Officer of Tradebulls.

Speaking about another development during the week, Desai told IANS: "Reliance Industries, the most valued company on BSE in terms of market capitalisation has touched its all-time high of Rs 849.7 per share during the week."

The top weekly Sensex gainers were: Sun Pharma (up 11.20 per cent at Rs 523.80); Tata Motors (DVR) (up 9.26 per cent at Rs 228.95); Tata Motors (up 6.99 per cent at Rs 401.25); Adani Ports (up 4.95 per cent at Rs 404); and Axis Bank (up 4.93 per cent at Rs 517.55).

The losers were: Wipro (down 4.88 per cent at Rs 285.75); Hero MotoCorp (down 1.54 per cent at Rs 3,898); Bharti Airtel (down 1.29 per cent at Rs 398); ITC (down 1.14 per cent at Rs 269.35); and HDFC (down 0.42 per cent at Rs 1,770.85).