Sensex rises most in two weeks

India’s benchmark stock index rose the most in two weeks, led by software exporters, after Tata Consultancy Services forecast sales would jump this year.

Tata Consultancy (TCS), the nation’s biggest software services company, soared to the highest in more than two years after Chief Executive Officer Subramanian Ramadorai said he expected domestic sales to grow 20 per cent this fiscal year.

ICICI Bank Ltd. gained 3.3 per cent as Bank of America Corp. boosted its share-price forecast for the Indian bank.

“We are positive on information technology (IT) and banking stocks on their earnings outlook,” said I V Subramaniam, chief investment officer at Quantum Advisors in Mumbai.

The Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensitive Index, or Sensex, rose 159.91, or 1 per cent, to 16,852.91.

The S&P CNX Nifty Index on the National Stock Exchange gained 1 per cent to 5,006.85. The BSE 200 Index advanced 0.8 per cent to 2,066.51. The Sensex has more than doubled from its March 9 low, helped in part by the election victory of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Congress Party.

India is the world’s ninth-best performer this year to date among 89 major indexes tracked by Bloomberg.

Tata Consultancy rose 3.9 per cent to Rs 610.4, its highest since June 11, 2007.

‘India growing’
“India is still growing for us,” Ramadorai said in an interview in Kuala Lumpur today. Purchases of Indian equities by overseas funds for the year through to September 25 exceeded record sales in 2008.

Global money managers have purchased a net Rs 54,200 crore ($11.3 billion) of stocks since January 1, fueling a 75 per cent surge in the Sensex this year, according to the nation’s market regulator.