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Mumbai: India’s stock benchmark rose, clocking its tenth straight session of gains, as investors piled into beaten-down shares in the last hour of trading.
The S&P BSE Sensex closed up 0.4% to complete its longest winning streak in 13 years, reversing losses of as much as 0.9% earlier in the day. The NSE Nifty 50 Index rose 0.3%, also climbing for 10 days to mark its best run of gains in more than five years.
Investors snapped up shares across the finance and banking sectors on expectations of further relief measures related to loans at a hearing by the country’s apex court that was due to have taken place today. The Supreme Court deferred the hearing to Nov. 2 after market hours. India’s central bank and the federal government have urged the Supreme Court to reject pleas by borrowers to extend a loan repayment holiday.
“The sudden gain was a surprise,” said Umesh Mehta, head of research at Samco Securities Ltd. “Banking shares drove the indexes up with investors thinking stocks were oversold particularly ahead of the Supreme Court’s decision.”
ICICI Bank Ltd. and Housing Development Finance Corp. contributed the most to the Sensex’s advance, rising 2.7% and 1.9%, respectively. Both Indian measures are close to erasing year-to-date losses, supported by inflows of around $821 million into Indian equities from foreign investors this month.
Sentiment was weighed down earlier in the day by a slump in risk appetite globally and a rocky start to the domestic earnings season. Wipro Ltd. plunged 6.8%, the most in almost seven months, after it reported net income of 24.7 billion rupees ($337 million) for the three months through September versus a consensus estimate of 25.2 billion rupees. The two Nifty 50 firms that have announced earnings so far have missed analyst estimates. Infosys Ltd. is due to release results later today.
