Home Stock market Benchmark indices settle on Friday near 5-month high; HDFC Bank up 3.6%

Benchmark indices settle on Friday near 5-month high; HDFC Bank up 3.6%

Benchmark indices settled the day higher, gaining for the fourth straight week driven by financials even after RBI put HDFC Bank back in the FII ban list.

The Central Bank said the private bank has crossed overall limit of 74% of its paid-up capital and no further purchases of shares the bank would be allowed via exchanges for FIIs. It had allowed allowed foreign investors to resume buying in the private bank earlier.

Nifty50 rose as much as 1.3% during the early morning trade led by HDFC Bank after it gained 9.5% to a record high of Rs 1,454.

The S&P BSE Sensex settled the day at 28,469, up 167 points, while the broader Nifty50 ended at 8,822, up 44 points.

In the broader market, BSE Midcap and BSE Smallcap gained 0.5% and 0.4% respectively.

HDFC Bank pared gains to end 3.6% higher after the RBI put the bank back in its FII bank list. Market cap of HDFC surpassed that of RIL’s post the announcement. Nifty Bank also reached its record high of 21,042 led by rally in banks.

Financials surged with the Nifty Bank index rising as much as 4% to a record high while both the Nifty Private Bank index and the Nifty Financial Services index gained over 3.5% to hit all-time highs. Nifty Bank later pared the gains to end 1.5% higher.

Pharma stocks also rose with Sun Pharmaceutical Industries among top percentage gainers, up 3.8% on BSE Sensex. The healthcare index also gained over 1.5%

Meanwhile, Indiabulls Housing Finance and Indian Oil Corporation gained 2.7% and 2.2% respectively after reports that they will replace BHEL and Idea Cellular in NSE’s benchmark index Nifty. The changes will come into effect from March 31, 2017, according to the announcement.

Idea Cellular fell 1.8% while BHEL settled flat after losing over 1% during intra-day deals.

Here are some picks from the week gone by.

Company: Ceat Ltd. CMP: 1130.15 Mastermind