Auto stocks continue to gain; climb up to 4.3 pc

Auto stocks continued their winning run on Friday, gaining up to 4.3 per cent after government's assurance of support to the struggling sector.

Amid clamour from the auto industry for a GST rate cut, Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur on Friday asked players in the sector to also take up the matter with state finance ministers who are part of the GST Council, and assured all support from the Centre.

Shares of Eicher Motors rose 4.26 per cent, Maruti Suzuki India gained 3.61 per cent, Bajaj Auto climbed 2.90 per cent, TVS Motor Company rose 2.79 per cent, Tata Motors gained 2.58 per cent, Mahindra & Mahindra ended up 2.34 per cent on the BSE.

Hero MotoCorp gained 2.14 per cent, MRF rose 1.69 per cent, Bosch climbed 1.63 per cent, Ashok Leyland rose 1.27 per cent and Motherson Sumi Systems gained 1.23 per cent.

Led by rally in these counters, the BSE auto index closed 2.54 per cent higher at 15,958.68.

"Expectation of sops to the falling auto sector lifted market sentiments today," Geojit Financial Services Head of Research Vinod Nair said.

Automobile stocks had jumped up to 7.8 per cent on Thursday after Union Minister Nitin Gadkari assured the crisis-hit industry of all possible support.

Automobile and component manufacturers have been seeking GST rate cut on automobiles to 18 per cent from 28 per cent to help the sector come out of a prolonged slump that has resulted in job losses.