Sensex up 140 points on fund inflows; wipro, bank stocks gain

Mumbai: Extending its rising streak for the third straight session, the benchmark BSE Sensex surged over 140 points to close at 28,262.01, led by gains in IT major Wipro and financial stocks on encouraging earnings.

The BSE 30-share Sensex resumed on a strong footing at 28,249.84 and continued its upward journey to touch the day's high of 28,334.06 before closing 140.12 points higher at 28,262.01. This is its strongest close since 28,458.10 on December 5.

The index has now gained over 915 points in the last three sessions.

The NSE Nifty index rose 36.90 points, or 0.43 per cent, to end at 8,550.70 after moving between 8,570.95 and 8,531.50. Shares of Wipro, country's third-largest IT services exporter, emerged top gainer by ending 5.26 per cent higher at Rs 584.45 after company's net profit rose 8 per cent to 2,192.8 crore in Q3.

Other gainers in the 30-share Sensex include GAIL, BHEL, Axis Bank, Bharti Airtel, Tata Motors, M&M, ICICI Bank, cipla, L&T, Sun Pharma, Hindalco, Dr Reddy, RIL, NTPC, Tata Steel, ONGC, HDFC Bank, Coal India and Tata Power.

Sentiments remained bullish with the expectations that the RBI's surprise rate cut last week would revive credit growth, brokers said.

Appreciating the rupee which strengthened to almost two-month high of 61.58 (intra-day) against the American currency at the forex market also buoyed sentiment, they said.

Sectorally, the BSE Consumer Durables index gained the most by rising 3.35 per cent, followed by Healthcare 1.17 per cent, Capital Goods 1.17 per cent, Power 1.08 per cent, Auto 0.98 per cent, Banking 0.92 per cent and Oil and Gas 0.81 per cent.

Major Sensex losers were Hind Unilever, Hero MotoCorp, HDFC Ltd, TCS, SBI, Infosys, Bajaj Auto and ITC Ltd, capping the rise in the benchmark.

Helped by retail investors' buying, the small-cap index rose 0.80 per cent and mid-cap index surged 0.45 per cent. Mixed closing at other Asian markets and a better opening in Europe also influenced trading sentiments.

Foreign investors bought shares worth a net Rs 1,099.93 crore last Friday as per provisional data.