By Bharath Rajeswaran
(Reuters) -Indian shares rose on Monday, after five consecutive sessions of losses, as ICICI Bank’s better-than-expected quarterly profit led the heavyweight financials sector higher.
The NSE Nifty 50 rose 1.01% to 24,424.7 points as of 10:45 a.m. IST, while the BSE Sensex inched 1.13% higher to 80,303.46.
The Nifty is down about 7.5% from the record high hit on Sept. 27, dragged down by sustained foreign selling over the last 20 sessions and the largely lacklustre earnings season so far. The benchmark also logged losses in the previous five sessions.
“While a bounce in the markets is overdue after the drop in the last four weeks, the outlook will turn definitively positive only after a reversal of selling pressure from foreign investors,” said Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research at HDFC Securities.
The losing run could come to an end with ICICI Bank, the third-heaviest Nifty 50 stock, rising 3.6% and leading gains in banks and financials, which are up about 1.3% each.
Better asset quality and highest current account-savings account growth among peers have been encouraging signs from the private lender’s results, three analysts said.
Bank of Baroda, India’s second-largest state-owned lender by market capitalisation, gained 5.6%, taking public sector banks 3% higher.
Strong recoveries, steady loan growth and improvement in asset quality are helping the rally in Bank of Baroda, two analysts said.
The broader, more domestically focused small- and mid-caps rose about 0.75% each.
Among individual stocks, non-bank lender Shriram Finance rose 7% after reporting a rise in profit and an improvement in asset quality in the September quarter.
Bandhan Bank climbed 8.5% on beating profit estimates.
Interglobe Aviation , which operates IndiGo, shed 6.7% after posting a quarterly loss compared to a profit a year ago.
($1 = 84.0780 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips, Janane Venkatraman and Sumana Nandy)
