The benchmark indices advanced for a fifth day in the last six consecutive sessions on Friday to post the highest weekly gain in two months. The BSE benchmark Sensex ended 164.11 points or 0.80% higher at 20,700.75 points, while NSE’s Nifty ended 64 points or 1.05% higher at 6,155.45 points after a business survey showed that growth in US manufacturing activity has hit a near 4-year high in February.
It was a positive week for the markets with the 30-share Sensex gaining 333.93 points or 1.63% in the week. The market rally was triggered by finance minister P Chidambaram, who in the interim budget, announced excised duty cuts on vehicles, capital goods products and mobile handsets.
As per the provisional data, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought $97.32 million worth of shares on Friday, turning them net buyers in year-to-date at $91.74 million. FIIs have been net buyers ineach session during the week, pumping in a total of $329.77 million. On Friday domestic institutional investors (DIIs) sold $61.54 million worth of shares.
?I believe people are already beginning to realise that they have moved too fast,? said Mark Mobius, the executive chairman, Templeton Emerging Markets Fund in a media interaction. ?We?re nearing the bottom of this exodus.?
Among individual stocks, Axis Bank (2.85%), Larsen & Tourbo (1.89%) and ITC (1.83%) led the market rally. Banking stocks have been rallying on hopes of better fiscal health after the government announced on Monday that the country?s fiscal deficit for FY14 would be contained at 4.6% of GDP. The BSE Bankex has gained 397.62 points in the week.
Most Asian markets advanced on Friday. The Nikkei (2.88%), KOSPI (1.41%), Straits Times (0.43%) and Taiwan Taiex (0.91%) ended higher. However, the Shanghai Composite bucked the trend and ended 1.17% lower amid disappointing Chinese data. Data showed the flash Markit/HSBC Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for China fell to a seven-month low of 48.3 in February.
For the week, the Nikkei has been the top gainer in Asia at 3.17%, while Sensex and Nifty gained 1.25% and 1.38%, respectively, in dollar terms. Back home, among sectoral indices, BSE Bankex (1.16%), BSE Metal (0.85%) and BSE Capital Goods (1.24%) were the major gainers on Friday. For the week, BSE Bankex has been the top-performer with gains of 3.35%.
Among Sensex stocks, Axis Bank (7.89%), Tata Power (6.57%) and Larsen & Tourbo (5.90%) have been the top-performers in the week. Meanwhile, Bharti Airtel (-5.57%), Coal India (-3.59%) and Hindalco (-2.25%) have been the major losers.
Among emerging markets, Brazil saw the highest FII inflows for the week at $486 million, while Indonesia saw the second highest inflow at $376 million, as per data from Bloomberg.