Indian bystanders watch share prices displayed on a digital broadcast on the facade of the Bombay Stock Exchange building in Mumbai. The S&P BSE Sensex closed up 0.6% to 27,364.92 points yesterday.

Bloomberg
Mumbai


Indian stocks advanced, led by energy companies, after Reliance Industries reported better-than- expected earnings.
Reliance, owner of the world’s largest refining complex, surged the most in 19 months. Bharti Airtel, India’s largest mobile-phone operator, climbed to a two-month high. Hindustan Unilever, India’s biggest household products maker, ended an eight-day decline. Infosys, a software exporter, rallied for the first time in six days.
The S&P BSE Sensex added 0.6% to 27,364.92 at the close in Mumbai. The gauge capped a third straight week of gains on Friday, rising above its 100-day average for the first time since August, after the Reserve Bank of India on September 29 cut its main interest rate by twice as much as most economists surveyed by Bloomberg predicted. Three of the four firms that have posted earnings for the September quarter have beaten or matched analyst estimates, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
“The earnings season so far has been better than expected, and Reliance is supporting the market after its results,” Alex Mathews, the head of research at Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services, said by phone from the southern state of Kerala. “The market will remain positive as the benchmark gauges are trading above their 100-day averages.”
Reliance’s net income, excluding units, increased 14% to Rs 65.61bn ($1bn) in the September quarter as gross refining margins expanded, the Mumbai-based company said after trading ended on Friday. That is the fastest pace of profit growth in nine quarters and beat the Rs58.4bn average of 12 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. The shares soared 5.6%, the most since May 7, 2014.
Bharti surged 4% to its highest level since August 21. Hindustan Unilever increased 1.2%, ending an eight-day, 5.4% tumble. Infosys added 1.6%, halting last week’s 6.2% drop after it cut its yearly sales outlook. Lupin, a drugmaker, added 0.9%, taking this year’s gains to 45%, the most on the Sensex.
International investors bought a net $62mn of Indian stocks on October 15, taking this year’s inflows to $4.1bn. The Sensex has fallen 0.5% in 2015 and trades at 15.8 times projected 12-month profits. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index trades at 11.4 times.
The 50-stock CNX Nifty index on the NSE added 0.5% to 8,275.05, closing above its 100-day moving average of 8,206 for a second day.
Meanwhile the rupee was little changed from Friday at 64.8050 a dollar, prices from local banks compiled by Bloomberg show.
India’s one-year interest-rate swaps dropped to a two-week low amid optimism cash supply in the financial system remains adequate.
The overnight call-money rate, a gauge of interbank funding availability, has averaged 6.64% so far in October, down from 7.01% for all of September, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Commercial banks have passed on about 70 of the 125-basis point reduction in benchmark borrowing costs by the central bank this year, with more than half of it coming after Governor Raghuram Rajan on September 29 cut the repurchase rate by a larger-than-estimated 50 basis points.
“The liquidity in the banking system is good,” said Harish Agarwal, a Mumbai-based fixed-income trader at the local unit of South African lender FirstRand. “The Reserve Bank of India has been managing the cash situation very well.”
The premium to lock in borrowing costs for one year fell two basis points to 7.02% in Mumbai, the least since October 5, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The yield on the sovereign notes due May 2025 rose one basis point to 7.57%, according to prices from the RBI’s trading system.