Thaindian News

Mumbai, Oct 14 (IANS) Benchmark indices at Indian equities markets Friday rose over a percent, closing the week with gains of about 5 percent.

The 30-scrip sensitive index (Sensex) of the BSE regained the 17,000 points-mark after three weeks and closed Friday at 17,082.69 points, up 198.77 points or 1.18 percent from its previous close at 16,883.92 points.

It had opened at 16,836.83 points and remained sluggish during the earlier part of the day. However, buying picked up in the afternoon sending the Sensex to an intra-day high of 17,112.45 points.

The Sensex’s weekly gain was 5.24 percent or 850.15 points.

The 50-scrip S&P; CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange also ended higher Friday, closing 1.07 percent or 54.45 points up at 5,132.3 points.

For the week, the Nify gained 244.25 or 4.99 percent.

Broader markets too moved up. The BSE 500 index closed 0.85 percent higher. The BSE midcap index ended 0.55 percent higher, while the BSE small cap index closed 0.31 percent up.

The market breadth at the BSE was positive with 1,431 stocks advancing, compared to 1,331 on the decline and 130 remaining unchanged.

“The rally to 17,000 was led by the IT heavyweights including Infosys, TCS and Wipro. Infosys came up with strong guidance which added momentum to the IT stocks,” said Sanjeev Zarbade, vice president, private client group research, Kotak Securities.

“Besides, banking stocks also did well with that index rising by about 7 - 8 percent for the week,” he added.

Prominent Sensex gainers on Friday included: Jindal Steel, up 5.01 percent at Rs.525.15; TCS, up 4.01 percent at Rs.1,134.50; Wipro, up 3.98 percent at Rs.363.20 and Bharti Airtel, up 3.76 percent at Rs.383.75.

Major losers were: Coal India, down 2.91 percent at Rs.322.30; DLF, down 2.68 percent at Rs.438.40; Maruti Suzuki, down 2.65 percent at Rs.1,028.40 and L&T;, down 0.74 percent at Rs.1,407.80.

Asian markets fell Friday after credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded Spain’s sovereign credit rating, renewing concerns about the extent of Europe’s fiscal woes.

Bourses across the world have managed to gain during the week as investors took hope from various Euro zone countries coming on board to expand the European Financial Stability Facility — a fund which is supposed to be used to ease out countries from the debt crisis.

The Japanese Nikkei was Friday ruling 0.85 percent lower at 8,747.96 points, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng closed 1.36 percent down at 18,501.79 points.

The Chinese Shanghai composite index closed 0.3 percent lower at 2,431.37 points.

European bourses were trading higher amid a meeting of the G20 finance ministers, which investors hoped would yield details on plans to deal with the European sovereign debt crisis.

Around mid-day, Britain’s FTSE was trading 0.77 percent higher at 5,445.1 points, and the German DAX was ruling 0.67 percent up at 5,954.74 points.

The French CAC 40 was ruling 0.85 percent higher at 3,213.99 points.