Sensex, Nifty gain ahead of state election results

By Abhishek Vishnoi

MUMBAI (Reuters) - The BSE and Nifty rose on Friday, led by stocks of domestic oriented companies including lenders such as HDFC Bank on value buying and hopes a likely win for the BJP in two recent state elections would help push key reforms.

Opinion polls showed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was likely to win in Haryana and Maharashtra, unseating unpopular incumbents. Traders say the wins should help push key reforms such as gas price hike and goods and services tax.

The gains, however, were not enough to avert a fourth consecutive weekly fall amid one of the most volatile spells in world markets in years.

 

A possible recession in Europe, a floundering economy in Japan, a slowdown in China and the Ebola virus outbreak have conspired to rattle investors, triggering a level of volatility in global markets.

Shares are expected to remain volatile in the upcoming holiday-truncated week, amid the state election outcome due on Sunday, ongoing July-September corporate results and global events such as China's quarterly GDP on Tuesday.

"It's tough to call markets amid global volatility and fall in oil prices. Fundamentally the growth in India looks better than peers and it remains a buy on declines," said Deven Choksey, managing director of K. R. Choksey Securities.

The BSE Sensex rose 0.42 percent, or 109.19 points, to end at 26,108.53, but closed 0.72 percent down for the week.

The Nifty rose 0.41 percent, or 31.50 points, to end at 7,779.70. It, however, ended 1.02 percent lower for the week.

Domestic-oriented stocks, especially lenders, led the gainers. HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank gained 3.1 percent each.

State Bank of India ended up 2.3 percent and Axis Bank rose 2 percent.

Among midcap banks, Oriental Bank of Commerce rose 5.4 percent and Andhra Bank surged 5.7 percent.

Among non-banking lenders, Housing Development Finance Corp gained 1.6 percent while IDFC advanced 2.1 percent.

Larsen and Toubro gained 2.1 percent and Mahindra and Mahindra rose 2.8 percent.

However, Tata Consultancy Services slumped 8.9 percent, marking its biggest single-day fall since May 2009 after disappointing earnings while sequential U.S. dollar revenue growth also lagged estimates.

HCL Technologies Ltd lost 9.1 percent with traders citing disappointment over July-September earnings.

Tata group's Rallis India fell 6.4 percent after company's standalone July-September revenue growth of 2.3 percent missed some estimates by wide margins.

(Editing by Anupama Dwivedi)