Sensex Rises On Foreign Fund Buying

(RTTNews) - Indian shares rose on Monday, driven by foreign fund inflows, as investors bet on the Narendra Modi-led BJP government for economic reforms and growth. Saying that the country was making the transition from a "winter of subdued achievement" to a "new spring", Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday dared India to dream of making the transition from a $2 trillion economy to a $20 trillion one. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, meanwhile, said there is a need to gradually rationalize all subsidies to give fillip to industrial growth. Rising for a third day, the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex rose 140.12 points or 0.50 percent to finish at 28,262.01. The broader CNX Nifty index closed up 36.90 points or 0.43 percent at 8,550.70, with Wipro, GAIL, BHEL, Ambuja Cements and Axis Bank pacing the gainers.

Wipro shares jumped 5.3 percent after the country's third-largest IT services exporter reported a healthy all round performance for the December quarter on the back of growth in infrastructure and healthcare outsourcing services.

SpiceJet shares were locked at the 10 percent upper circuit limit. Exiting the cash-strapped airline will cause "a substantial capital loss" to its existing promoters Sun TV group, but the consequences of not hiving off could have been a lot worse, group CFO, SL Narayanan, said in an interview to Business Line.

Reliance Industries gained 1.2 percent as the energy giant reported a 4.5 percent year-over-year decline in consolidated net profit for the quarter ended December, matching street expectations.

Fertilizer firm Rashtriya Chemicals & Fertilizers soared 9 percent and rival Chambal Fertilizers & Chemicals rallied 3 percent on reports the Modi government is planning to decontrol the maximum retail price of urea.

Indiabulls Housing Finance rose 0.6 percent on solid Q3 results. Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services plunged 7.1 percent on dismal Q3 results.

Hindustan Unilever shares tumbled 5 percent even as the FMCG giant reported an 18 percent rise in quarterly profit, beating estimates.

On the global front, the Asian markets followed Wall Street higher, although Chinese and Hong Kong shares bucked the upward trend amid concerns the recent rally was overdone. China's Shanghai Composite index plunged 7.70 percent to finish at 3,116.35, after the country's securities regulator imposed margin trading curbs on three major brokerages, a sign that authorities are making efforts to keep investor enthusiasm in check after big gains last year.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index dropped 1.51 percent to finish at 23,738.49 in tandem with the slide in Chinese stocks as investors braced for a slew of Chinese data slated for release tomorrow.

The European markets were slightly higher in early trading, extending gains for a third consecutive session.