IGI Logo

Indian shares logged third straight weekly gains on Friday, led by financials, while the central bank kept a key policy rate unchanged, as expected.

Both the Nifty and S&P BSE Sensex added about 0.8% each for the week.

Financial services, the highest weighted sub-index, gained 2.70% this week, its best in four months, led by a rise in top private lender HDFC Bank after it posted a sequential growth in deposits in the March quarter.

HDFC Bank gained 7.02% this week, its best since November 2022.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) maintained its main lending rate at 6.50% for the seventh straight meeting on Friday.

Realty, a domestic rate-sensitive sector, rose 1.43% on the day and 4.12% for the week.

Besides strong sales momentum in the real estate market, India's strong growth outlook and the RBI's adherence to maintaining a stable rate outlook bode well for the real estate sector, said Shishir Baijal, chairman and managing director of Knight Frank India.

On the day, the Nifty 50 and Sensex closed little changed.

Among individual stocks, Divi's Laboratories rose 8.79%, supported by a BofA double upgrade of the drugmaker's stock earlier in the week, citing earnings momentum.

India's quarterly earnings season, beginning from next week, will influence the near-term trajectory of markets, three analysts said.

Latest Nifty 50 entrant - Shriram Finance - rose 6.74% for the week, boosted by reports that Warburg Pincus was a frontrunner to buy the company's housing finance unit.

U.S.-rate sensitive IT stocks dropped 0.5% on the day after comments from Federal Reserve officials added to worries of a delay in U.S. rate cuts.

The broader, more domestically-focussed small- and mid-caps gained 0.84% and 0.56%, respectively, on the day.

They jumped 7.1% and 4.05% this week, after losing 4.42% and 0.54% in March on concerns over frothy valuations.