IT stocks, Reliance boost Indian shares to five-month high
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Indian shares advanced on Friday, with the Nifty 50 rising to a five-month high, led by information technology (IT) stocks and a jump in Reliance Industries, the country's biggest company by market capitalisation.
The blue-chip Nifty 50 index closed 0.97% at 18,499.35, while the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex rose 1.02% to 62,501.69.
Both the Nifty and Sensex logged weekly gains of over 1% and jumped to their highest levels since December 2022.
All 13 major sectoral indexes advanced, with the high-weightage IT rising nearly 1.5% and all 10 constituents logging gains. HCLTech Ltd and Wipro Ltd were among the top Nifty 50 gainers.
IT stocks received a boost after a sharp overnight rise in the tech-heavy Nasdaq, fuelled by strong earnings of chip-maker Nvidia.
Progress in U.S. debt ceiling talks ahead of the June 1 deadline also supported the sentiment across global markets. [MKTS/GLOB]
Among individual stocks, Reliance Industries Ltd jumped nearly 3% after global brokerage Bernstein estimated that its units Reliance Retail and Reliance Jio would claim the lion's share of India's $150-plus billion e-commerce marketplace in the long term.
Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd surged almost 7% after the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) set aside an earlier National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) order for its merger with Sony, a lawyer source with direct knowledge of the proceedings told Reuters.
Separately, Christopher Wood, global head of equity strategy at Jefferies, in a newsletter said that "there is no obvious trigger for valuation de-rating in Indian markets as the monetary tightening cycle comes to an end."
Wood said it is only a matter of time before the Sensex touched the 100,000 level and remained optimistic about a capex cycle in India.
($1 = 82.7176 Indian Rupees)
