Sensex up for fifth straight day, rises 147 pts

Indian shares edged up for the fifth consecutive session today as the market benchmark Sensex rose by 147.33 points to 26,932.88 on sustained foreign fund inflows amid prospects of a delay in the US Fed rate hike.
However, gains were muted following profit-booking in IT, teck banking and power stocks.
With this, the BSE barometer has gathered 1,316.04 points in five sessions and stands at a fresh one and a half months high of 26,932.88, a level last seen on August 21.
Globally, other Asian markets ended mixed, while European markets were flat in their early trade.
Meanwhile, a provisional data showed that foreign investors bought shares worth Rs 650 crore yesterday.

"Fading chances of a US Federal Reserve rate hike this year continued to boost sentiments and Asian markets continued to post positive performance for second consecutive session," said Achin Goel Head of wealth management and Financial Planning at Bonanza Portfolio.

After resuming higher, the BSE Sensex quickly recaptured the 27,000-mark and touched a high of 27,010.27, but on profit-booking it slipped into negative zone briefly. However, the index bounced back to settle at 26,932.88 -- a gain of 147.33 points or 0.55 per cent.
The wider NSE Nifty too continued its rising streak to touch 8,180.95 before ending 33.60 points or 0.41 per cent higher at 8,152.90.

From the Sensex pack, Tata Motors remained the top gainer for the second day with a surge of 5.81 per cent to Rs 333.50 on sales data for September and reports that Jaguar Land Rover's US unit sales soared.
Other prominent gainers were ITC, Coal India, Cipla, GAIL, ONGC, HUL, Dr Reddy's, Vedanta, Sun Pharma, Tata Steel, RIL, Hero MotoCorp, Hindalco, ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel and L&T.
Among 30-Sensex components, 19 stocks gained. While, BHEL, Infosys, Maruti Suzuki, NTPC and Axis Bank ended lower.
Sectorwise, BSE consumer durables index gained the most by surging 4.30 per cent, followed by FMCG 2.41 per cent, metal 2.14 per cent, oil&gas 1.92 per cent and PSU 1.11 per cent.

In line with broad trend, small-cap index rose 0.69 per cent and mid-cap was up 0.31 per cent.