(Updates levels, adds analysts' comments)
By Bharath Rajeswaran
BENGALURU, April 10 (Reuters) - Indian shares advanced
on Monday, aided by auto and realty stocks following strong
quarterly business updates, but rising odds of a U.S. Federal
Reserve rate hike in May capped gains.
The Nifty 50 rose 0.28% at 17,647.70, as of 9:51
a.m. IST, while the S&P BSE Sensex rose 0.24% to
59,975.11.
The Nifty and the Sensex have risen nearly 4% over the past
five sessions. Investors now await the corporate earnings for
the quarter-ended March, scheduled to begin this week.
Ten of the 13 major sectoral indexes advanced, with auto
stocks rising over 1%.
Tata Motors surged 8% and was the top gainer in
the Nifty, after several brokerages reiterated a "buy" rating
and maintained positive view of the company after its business
update for the March quarter. Tata Motors said JLR sales rose in
Q4 as chip supply recovered.
Realty stocks jumped over 2%. Sobha climbed nearly 4% after its Q4 business update showed that
quarterly sales rose to record high 14.63 billion rupees ($178.8
million).
"The market has been on an upward bias," said Prashanth
Tapse, senior vice president (research) at Mehta Equities,
adding that healthy foreign institutional investors' buying over
the last few sessions and economic data have fuelled optimism.
FIIs have remained net buyers in each of the last six
sessions,
adding
47.39 billion rupees worth of equities over the period.
Wall Street equities rose on Thursday in a truncated week,
ahead of U.S. jobs data, which was released on Friday.
The data indicated that the labour market remained tight in
March, but was largely in line with expectations and increased
the probability of a Fed rate hike in May.
The market is pricing in 68.3% chance of a 25 basis point
rate hike in May, up from 49.2% on Thursday, according to CME's
FedWatch Tool. ($1 = 81.8400 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran in Bengaluru; Editing by Varun
H K and Nivedita Bhattacharjee)
