Nifty rises to 1-1/2 mth high, Wipro shines on strong earnings

The benchmark Nifty today rose to mark nearly one-and-a half-month highs as IT major Wipro's strong earnings boosted the overall bouyant sentiment.
Optimism widened as the country third largest IT services exporter Wipro last Friday reported better-than-expected 8 per cent growth in consolidated net profit, sending its shares up by 5.25 per cent today.
The market, already bolstered by the RBI's surprise repo rate cut last week, saw continued buying in shares of key banks and financial firms. Energy, Pharma, Infra and Auto counters as well mid-cap and small-cap companies saw jump.
However, bouts of profit-booking also witnessed in key FMCG, IT and some PSU banks stocks.

Meanwhile, Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 1099.93 crore on last Friday as per provisional data.
The broader 50-share index hovered between high of 8,570.95 and low 8,531.50 before settling at 8,550.70, posting a gain of 36.90 points, or 0.43 per cent.

Other major gainers were GAIL 3.67 per cent, Ambuja Cement 3.11 per cent, Axis Bank 2.75 per cent, BHEL 2.63 per cent, IDFC 2.52 per cent, Bharti Airtel 2.30 per cent, Tata Motors 2.13 per cent, M&M 2.06 per cent, L&T 1.45 per cent and Reliance Industries 1.14 per cent.
Meanwhile notable losers were Hindunilvr 5.15 per cent, BPCL 2.14 per cent, HeroMotoCorp 1.95 per cent, Asian Paint 1.37 per cent and HDFC 1.08 per cent.

Elsewhere, Asian market mostly traded higher on rebound in last week US stocks while Chinese stocks fell.
Turnover in the cash segment dropped to Rs 15,571.58 crore as against Rs 19,227.78 crore last Friday. A total of 8,990.13 lakh shares changed hands in 67,24,987 trades and the market capitalisation at NSE stood at Rs 99,00,888 crore.