Sensex Jumps 174 Points, Nifty Settles At 3-Month High

Indian shares rose for a fourth consecutive session on Friday, helped by a rally in financial firms and optimism ahead of the annual federal budget next week. The BSE Sensex surged 174.32 points or 0.63 per cent to end at 27,882.46 and the NSE benchmark Nifty added 38.5 points to end at three month high of 8,641.25.

Recent corporate results have been better than expected, analysts said, while investors are also anticipating giveaways and incentives to help nurse an economy hit by the shock ban on higher-value banknotes late last year.

"Results (at financial firms) have positively surprised the markets so far," said Ankit Agarwal, fund manager and senior vice president at Centrum Wealth Management Ltd.

"The negative impact of demonetisation was probably not as bad as it was initially thought."

Financial stocks, led by ICICI Bank, Bank of Baroda, SBI, Housing Development Financial Corp and Axis Bank contributed most of the gains in the benchmark index today. The Nifty Bank, NSE's sub-index for banking shares surged 1.21 per cent on top of Wednesday's 2.36 per cent gain.

BHEL was the top gainer in the Nifty, which Surged 5.57 per cent to end at Rs 139.25. Bharti Airtel, ICICI Bank, Bank of Baroda and NTPC were the other major gainers in Nifty, rising between 2.5-5 per cent.

Meanwhile, ITC fell 3.01 per cent to be the top loser in the Nifty after it reported its earnings for the third quarter. Bosch, Lupin, Wipro, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Tata Motors were the other prominent losers in the Nifty50 index.