By Bharath Rajeswaran
BENGALURU (Reuters) – Indian shares rose on Monday and extended gains for the second consecutive session, led by a surge in Adani stocks and the metals index, while markets monitor U.S. debt limit negotiations after they stalled last week.
The blue-chip Nifty 50 index closed 0.61% higher at 18,314.40, while the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex rose 0.38% to 61,963.68.
Nine of the 13 major sectoral indexes logged gains, with the metal index jumping over 3%.
The rise in the metal index was led by nearly 19% surge in Adani Enterprises Ltd. The flagship firm of the Adani group of companies has over 17% weightage in the index.
All the Adani group stocks surged between 5% and 20%, extending their rally on Monday after India’s markets watchdog drew a blank in investigations into suspected violations in overseas investments in the Adani group
Among individual stocks, shares of Divi’s Laboratories Ltd jumped over 5% after global brokerage firm Jefferies upgraded the stock to “buy” from “underperform”, citing scope for core profit growth.
The high-weightage IT index rose 2.49% and was among the top sectoral gainers, with all 10 constituents logging gains.
“A market rebound from major support levels signals bullishness,” said Deven Mehata, equity research analyst at Choice Broking.
“Positional traders can purchase declines with suitable stop-loss near the support level of 18,050.”
Asian equities advanced after China’s central bank left its benchmark lending rates unchanged for the ninth month in a row.
The focus continues to be on U.S. debt ceiling negotiations. A failure to lift the ceiling would trigger a default and spike in interest rates, analysts cautioned.
“Advise investors to focus on accumulating quality stocks during the consolidation phase, amid mixed global cues,” said Ajit Mishra, vice president for technical research at Religare Broking.
($1 = 81.7800 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran in Bengaluru; Editing by Dhanya Ann Thoppil and Sonia Cheema)
