Gaurav Jain, director, Hem Securities, said, “Indian indices registered gains of about 1 per cent in the week gone by aided by hopes of a few amendments on GST Bill, positive global cues, rise in crude prices, short covering, and lower level buying”. However, Asian markets ended mostly in green as investors overlooked prospects of higher USA borrowing costs and slower global economic growth.
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The 30-share BSE Sensex rose 183.96 points or 0.71 percent to 26025.88 and the 50-share NSE Nifty climbed 54.35 points or 0.69 percent to 7897.10. It closed Wednesday’s trade lower by 27 paise at 66.30 to a United States dollar from its previous day’s close of 66.03 to a greenback.
The Sensex touched a high of 25,854.51 points and a low of 25,603.10 points during the intra-day trade. “Market breadth ended in favour of the bears with 1,048 advances and 1,619 declines”. The BSE mid-cap and small-cap closed higher by up to 0.86 per cent.
The government this week also offered a gift to 4.2 million central government employees and 5.2 million retirees in the form of 7th pay commission hikes up to 23 per cent, entailing Rs 73,000 crore outflow on the exchequer.
Weighed down by heavy selling in blue-chips, the BSE Sensex stayed in the negative zone for the most part of the session and closed down 381.95 points, or 1.48 per cent, at 25,482.52 – a level last seen on September 8.
Other important stocks that lost steam today are Sun Pharma, Bharti Airtel, HDFC, Axis Bank and ITC all dropping between 0.7-1.7%. The recommendations, once cleared by the Cabinet, will lead to a substantial hike in salaries of central government employees and pensioners with effect from January 1, 2016.
Ramco Systems increased 1.8% to ₹767 after the software developer entered into a strategic partnership with the U.S.-based GAINSystems, Inc.
In 30-Sensex kitty, GAIL emerged as the top gainer, up 10.07 per cent. The Sensex rose 1% for the week. Sentiments were supported by continued gains in Asian shares as investors bet the US Federal Reserve would raise rates in December but proceed cautiously with any further tightening.
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South Korea’s average disposable household income grew a slim 0.2 percent in real terms in the third quarter over a year earlier, the slowest in almost two years.
