Indian shares advanced in a ceremonial late-evening session to mark Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, boosted by a rally on Wall Street and improving economic environment.
The S&P BSE Sensex rose 0.6% to 65,259.45 in the one-hour session, led by gains in index heavyweights HDFC Bank Ltd., Infosys Ltd. and Reliance Industries Ltd.. The NSE Nifty 50 Index climbed by 0.5%. Out of the 19 sector gauges compiled by BSE Ltd., all advanced. Coal India Ltd. jumped the most in two weeks after reporting better-than-expected earnings.
Small-cap stocks, which have beaten their global peers this year, rose. A gauge of their performance jumped 1.1% to close at a record amid optimism for India’s economy and corporate earnings. India continues to have superior growth dynamics compared with other economies in the region, while performance of its companies has been robust, ANZ said in a note this week.
The Sensex has ended higher in eight of the past 10 Diwali-day sessions, known as Muhurat trading, and has risen about 9% in the year since the last celebration. The broader market has also rallied, outpacing the benchmark, helped by record inflows into companies exposed to an economy that’s one of the fastest-growing in the world.
Determined by the new moon, the truncated session is deemed the most auspicious time to start investments, and to put aside any losses from the past year. Indian stocks have on average given returns of 17% in the past 10 Hindu calendar years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Trading in India resumes Monday before a holiday on Tuesday.
--With assistance from Ashutosh Joshi and Akshay Chinchalkar.
