New Delhi: Markets nudged higher on Friday as Tata Steel rebounded from an early slump, and investors bet on rising foreign fund investments to underpin the market.
Foreign funds have invested more than $3.6 billion in local equities so far this year, data from the Securities and Exchange Board of India showed. In 2011, they were net sellers of about $500 million.
“The liquidity has overtaken fundamentals,” said Jagannadham Thunuguntla, head of research at SMC Global Securities in New Delhi. “The Fed, ECB and the RBI have turned out to be the cheer leaders for the market.”
By 10:42am, the main 30-share BSE index was up 0.19% at 17,865.17, ahead of December industrial output data.
Indian industrial output rose by a slower-than-expected 1.8% in December compared with a year earlier, government data showed on Friday
Analysts on average had expected a rise of 3.4%, a Reuters poll showed. The December figure compares with November’s provisional increase of 5.9%
Tata Steel initially fell 4% in pre-open trade after the world’s No.7 steelmaker reported late on Thursday its first quarterly net loss in more than two years.
It later rebounded as much as 4.4% and led the gainers. The company expects one million tonne additional sales in the next financial year, its chief financial officer said.
Top telecoms operator Bharti Airtel gained 1.5% after losing 10% in the last three sessions, while construction major Larsen & Toubro rose 1.1%.
Lenders ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank fell 0.6% and 0.5% respectively.
The 50-share NSE index was up 0.15% at 5,420.70. In the broader market, gainers led losers by about 1.3:1, on volume of around 283 million shares.
Elsewhere in the region, the MSCI’s broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan was down 1.2%, while Japan’s Nikkei was down 0.26%.
STOCKS
Hindustan Petroleum Corp rose 7.4% after the state-run oil marketing company said after market closed on Thursday its quarterly profit jumped 13-fold.
Jindal Stainless fell 2.4% after it reported a December-quarter loss of Rs 110 crore.
GTL Infrastructure rose 3.3% after it posted a lower loss of Rs 14.3 million in the December-quarter, compared with a loss of Rs 619.9 million a year ago.