The Sensex and Nifty ended higher on Friday, posting a third straight session of gains, as lacklustre US data helped ease investors' fears over the likelihood of an interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve next week.
The broader NSE index ended 37.3 points or 0.43 per cent higher at 8,779.85, after rising as much as 1.2 per cent earlier in the session, while the benchmark BSE index closed up 186.14 points or 0.66 per cent at 28,599.03, after gaining up to 1.29 per cent earlier in the day.
Both indexes, however, posted their first weekly loss in three.
Barring metal and banking, all other BSE sectoral indices ended in the positive zone. Among them, FMCG index gained the most by 1.23 per cent, IT 1.22 per cent, oil & gas 1.14 per cent and TECk 0.99 per cent. On the other hand, metal index was down 1.27 per cent and banking 0.01 per cent.
Top five Sensex gainers were Maruti (+2.25%), Axis Bank (+2.11%), ITC (+2.08%), Infosys (+1.82%) and Hero MotoCorp (+1.78%), while the major losers were Tata Steel (-2.14%), Tata Motors (-1.5%), Asian Paints (-1.23%), ICICI Bank (-1.15%) and HDFC (-0.62%).
“Markets are recovering from losses earlier in the week... with heavy investments made in large caps in recent times as far as allocation of new funds are concerned,” said Deven Choksey, managing director at KR Choksey Securities.
Investors now await the policy meetings of the US Fed and the Bank of Japan next week for cues on monetary policies.
A report by SMC Global said " Asian shares rose from a six-week low after Apple Inc.drove a rebound in the S&P 500 Index, while the yen strengthened and crude oil fell. US stocks closed sharply higher on Thursday as investors parsed through a series of economic data as the Federal Reserve's next meeting draws near.US business inventories were virtually unchanged in July after rising by 0.2 percent in June. Inventories had been expected to inch up by 0.1 percent.While retail inventories fell by 0.3 percent in July after climbing by 0.4 percent in June, manufacturing inventories inched up by 0.1 percent after coming in flat in the previous month."