Indian shares advanced to a record for a second straight day, with the benchmark indexes and the gauges for mid and small-sized companies touching new highs. An index of software stocks pace gains, rising the most among the 19 sector indices compiled by BSE.
The S&P BSE Sensex climbed 0.6% to 34,352.79 points yesterday, while the S&P BSE MidCap and the S&P BSE SmallCap indexes added 1% each. The NSE Nifty 50 Index rose 0.6%.
Coal India – the world’s biggest producer of the fuel – advanced 3.3%, the steepest among Sensex and Nifty companies, after the coal minister said the company needed to raise its daily output to 2mn tonnes to achieve its target.
“Markets are touching new highs driven by liquidity and a global rally, as well as before earnings reports for October to December,” said Sushant Kumar, a fund manager at Raay Global Investments in Mumbai. “Infrastructure and manufacturing may throw a positive surprise on the earnings front,” he said.
Infosys, the country’s second-biggest software exporter, rose 2.4% and contributed most to the advance in key gauges by weighting. The company is CLSA India’s top pick for 2018 due to “reasonable earnings growth and re-rating potential.”
Infosys boosted the S&P BSE Information Technology Index’s 1.4% gain. Only the S&P BSE Telecom Index dropped among the sector gauges, retreating 2.6%. A reduction in tariffs by Reliance Jio Infocomm will pressurise average revenue per user of the company and its rivals, Credit Suisse Securities (India) said in a note.
The results season kicks off on January 11 when IndusInd Bank reports earnings.
Indian stock funds got a record Rs1.33tn ($21bn) of inflows in the first nine months of the fiscal year that began April 1 versus about Rs508bn in the previous year, according to data from the Association of Mutual Funds. 
Meanwhile the rupee yesterday erased all the morning gains and closed weaker against US dollar tracking losses in the Asian currencies market. The home currency ended at 63.50 a dollar, down 0.20% from its Friday’s close of 63.37. In the morning trade, the rupee opened at 63.32 a dollar and hit a fresh 32-month high of 63.25, a level last seen on April 29, 2015.
The benchmark Sensex rose 0.58%, or 198.94 points, to 34,352.79. The local equity markets rose for a third session and advanced over 1.5% or 500 points. So far in 2018, it gained nearly 0.3%.
On Friday, the government forecast economic growth slowing to 6.5% in the year to 31 March from 7.1% in the previous year. The forecast released by the Central Statistics Office assumes that the economy is on a recovery path. The economy grew at 6% in the six months ended September 30, indicating that it will accelerate to 7% in the second half ending March 31, if the forecast is to come true.
In the year 2017, the rupee gained 6.35% and Sensex rose 28%, while foreign institutional investors have bought $7.73 billion and $23.27 billion in equity and debt, respectively.
The 10-year bond yield was at 7.315% compared to its previous close of 7.288%. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.
Asian currencies were trading lower. Philippines peso was down 0.61%, Singapore dollar 0.38%, South Korean won 0.32%, China Offshore 0.26%, China renminbi 0.15%, Taiwan dollar 0.14%, Indonesian rupiah 0.1%, Japanese yen 0.08%.
The dollar index, which measures the US currency’s strength against major currencies, was trading at 92.179, up 0.25% from its previous close of 91.949.


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