India's benchmark stock indices gained for a seventh straight session on Friday as domestic as well as foreign fund flows remained strong and reports suggested that ratings agency, S&P was also likely to review India's sovereign ratings.
The Bombay Stock Exchange's benchmark, Sensex, rose 91 points or 0.3 per cent to close at 33,679.24 points and the wider NSE Nifty50 index was up by 41 points or 0.4 per cent at 10,389.70.
For the week, both the Sensex and Nifty closed 1 per cent higher.
India's second largest software services exporter, Infosys, was the biggest gainer on the Sensex on Friday as the stock rose nearly 2 per cent. Mahindra & Mahindra accelerated 1 per cent after the company announced a deal with Uber, under which “hundreds” of M&M's electric vehicles will be deployed on the taxi aggregator's platform in various cities, starting Delhi and Hyderabad.
Other gainers included Kotak Mahindra Bank, Bajaj Auto, Power Grid and ITC, which were all up by around 1 per cent.
In a surprise move last week, ratings agency Moody's upgraded India's sovereign bond rating and according to a report citing government officials, S&P is also likely to bring out its review of India's rating on Friday. The ratings agency had recently lauded the government's bank recapitalisation plan and some hope that it may upgrade its rating from the BBB-, its lowest investment grade rating on bonds, which it has maintained since 2007.
Market experts also suggest some improvement in corporate earnings owing to the upbeat mood among investors.
“Second quarter earnings were fairly better than expectations. There were more positive surprises than negative. Some may argue that markets are over-valued to some extent, and there may be a short-term correction, but in the medium-term, the rally could continue,” said Mahesh Patil, co-chief investment officer at Aditya Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund.
Foreign institutional investors, who had turned bearish over August-October period have pumped in more money into Indian market following the Moody's ratings upgrade, which led to a pickup in corporate earnings along with strong inflows into mutual funds.
So far in November, FIIs have bought equity worth Rs 16,454 crore, taking their total equity investments in India to Rs 53,861 crore in 2017. Investments into domestic equity mutual funds have been far higher, crossing Rs 1 lakh crore this year.
Most Asian markets also ended higher on Friday, while European stocks traded mixed.
