By Bharath Rajeswaran and Indranil Sarkar
(Reuters) -Indian equity benchmarks ended higher on Friday, buoyed by consumer stocks on easing domestic retail inflation, and logged their fourth straight weekly gain – the longest such streak since July end.
The NSE Nifty 50 rose 0.89% to 24,768.3, while the BSE Sensex gained 1.04% to 82,133.12. Both the indexes fell as much as 1.4% earlier in the session.
For the week, the Nifty and Sensex gained about 0.4% and 0.5%, respectively.
The blue-chips are now about 5.5% below their all-time high levels hit on Sept. 27, after slipping into correction territory in early November.
Data on Thursday showed India’s retail inflation eased in November, boosting expectations of an interest rate cut by the central bank in February. However, analysts were wary of the elevated rural and urban food inflation.
The broad optimism helped the FMCG index to close 1.3% higher after declining 1% earlier in the day.
“The easing retail inflation is a good sign, which boosted consumer stocks on the day, but the Reserve Bank of India will at least wait for another month’s data and focus on various components of inflation before thinking about a rate cut,” said Avinash Gorakshakar, head of research at Profitmart Securities.
IT firms, which earn a significant share of their revenue from the U.S., gained 0.6% on Friday and 3% for the week, on near-certainty of a rate cut by the Federal Reserve next week.
The small-cap index, which came out of correction territory earlier in the week, logged a 0.4% weekly fall, while mid-caps gained 0.5%.
Telecom service provider Bharti Airtel rose 4.4% on the day and 5.25% this week, after Jefferies identified the company among its top picks in Asia for 2025.
Non-bank lender Bajaj Finance rose 4.85% this week after unveiling its growth strategy for fiscal year 2025-2029.
Bharti Airtel and Bajaj Finance were the top Nifty 50 gainers, by percentage, this week.
(Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran and Indranil Sarkar in Bengaluru; Editing by Janane Venkatraman, Sonia Cheema, Savio D’Souza, Mrigank Dhaniwala and Eileen Soreng)
