Sensex gains 118 points; interest-sensitive stocks gain (Roundup)

A day after the country's annual wholesale inflation dipped further, a benchmark index of the Indian equities markets, the 30-scrip BSE Sensitive Index (Sensex), closed 118 points up on Friday, as interest-sensitive stocks like automobile, banks and capital goods rose.

The dip in the annual wholesales inflation is significant as it comes on the back of lower retail inflation data.

The data has given hope to the India Inc that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its next monetary policy review meet on June 2, 2015 will consider the trend and cut lending rates.

During Friday's trade, the wider 50-scrip Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) also made gains. It closed the day's trade up 38.15 points or 0.46 percent up at 8,262.35 points.

The Sensex of the S&P Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 27,233.90 points, closed the day's trade at 27,324 points, up 117.94 points or 0.43 percent from the previous day's close at 27,206.06 points.

The Sensex touched a high of 27,379.57 points and a low of 27,159.76 points in the intra-day trade.

On Thursday official data showed that the annual rate of wholesale price inflation (WPI) decelerated further to its lowest in six months. The WPI stood at (-)2.65 percent for April from (-)2.33 percent for the month before.

The retail inflation eased nearly 40 basis points to 4.87 percent in April, as per official data.

Analysts tracking the days trade said the markets remained in a volatile trading session tracking the global cues and lack of major triggers from the domestic front.

"Markets ended the day and the week on a positive note. Bargain hunting at lower levels helped markets gain about 1 percent for the week," said Dipen Shah, head of private client group research with Kotak Securities said.

"On-schedule debt repayment by Greece eased related concerns which also led to cooling of US bond yields, which had hit highs early in the week. Delay in passing the GST Bill had an impact on the markets, we believe," Shah said.

Vinod Nair, head of fundamental research with Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services said that the recent phase of range-bound correction is led by FIIs (Foreign Institutional Investors) influenced by factors like increase in European bond yield, outperformance of other EMs (emerging markets) and currency volatility.

"On the positive side, latest CPI (Consumer Price Index) trajectory provides scope for rate cut by the next RBI meet. In the near-term, there is a risk as market factors the extent of further earnings downgrade considering FY16 earnings growth expectation continue to be more than 20 percent," Nair said.

On Friday, healthy buying was observed in automobile, healthcare, banks, capital goods and consumer durables stocks. However, metal, realty, oil and gas and power sectors came under heavy selling pressure.

The S&P BSE automobile index augmented by 112.63 points, followed by healthcare index which gained by 106.05 points, banking index increased by 91.41 points, capital goods index was higher by 85.41 points and consumer durables index was up by 82.15 points.

The S&P BSE metal index receded by 105.04 points, realty index lost 20.71 points, oil and gas index fell by 5.67 points and power index was down by 5.08 points.

The major Sensex gainers on Friday were: State Bank of India (SBI), up 2.39 percent at Rs.287.35; HDFC, up 1.80 percent at Rs.1,230; Bharti Airtel, up 1.80 percent at Rs.392.45; Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M), up 1.42 percent at Rs.1,243.40; and Infosys, up 1.30 percent at Rs.1,959.75.

The losers were: NTPC, down 2.05 percent at Rs.136.15; Vedanta, down 2.01 percent at Rs.210; Coal India, down 0.91 percent at Rs.366.15; GAIL, down 0.85 percent at Rs.379; and ICICI Bank, down 0.72 percent at Rs.312.70.

Among the Asian markets, Japan's Nikkei was higher by 0.83 percent, while China's Shanghai Composite Index moved lower by 1.57 percent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng was higher by 1.96 percent.

In Europe, London's FTSE 100 was up by 0.42 percent. France's CAC 40 was also higher by 0.42 percent and Germany's DAX Index gained 0.17 percent at the closing in the Indian markets.