Indian share markets continued to witness buying momentum in the afternoon session fueled by a rally in Reliance Industries and other blue chips on upbeat earnings. The sentiments also remained upbeat on strong global cues after centrist candidate and market favorite Emmanuel Macron won the first round of the French presidential election.
At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood higher by 287 points, while the NSE Nifty finished up 89 points at 9,306.60. Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Mid Cap and the S&P BSE Small Cap finished up by 1.1% and 0.6% respectively. Gains were largely seen in FMCG stocks, realty stocks and oil gas stocks.
Reliance Industries share price finished up by 1.1% in today’s trade after the company reported a 12.3% YoY increase in its consolidated March quarter profit, boosted by higher refining margins and better earnings from its petrochemical unit.
Asian stock markets finished broadly higher today with shares in Hong Kong leading the region buoyed by Wall Street gains as well as relief that North Korea did not conduct another missile test to mark a military anniversary. The Hang Seng is up 1.31% while Japan’s Nikkei 225 is up 1.08% and China’s Shanghai Composite is up 0.16%. European markets are mixed today. The CAC 40 is up 0.22% while the FTSE 100 gains 0.12%. The DAX is off 0.05%.
The rupee was trading at Rs 64.28 against the US$ in the afternoon session. Oil prices were trading at US$ 49.34 at the time of writing.
Reiterating that the problem of bad loans in the banking system is not “insurmountable” for India, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said that a large economy like India can deal with this problem, as it is not a problem spread over hundreds or thousands of accounts but is confined to only 20 to 30 big accounts. However, he stated that the problem of Non-performing assets (NPAs) has just persisted too long and is certainly adversely impacting the banking system.
