India Shares End At Over 8-Month High, Led by Blue Chips

MUMBAI (Dow Jones)--Fresh buying in blue chips and better-than-expected economic growth data helped Indian shares end at an over eight-month high Friday.

The Bombay Stock Exchange's benchmark Sensitive Index, or Sensex, closed up 329.24 points, or 2.3%, at 14,625.25, after trading between 14,319.87 and 14,727.28.

It last closed above this level at 14,662.61 on Sept. 10. The 30-stock index ended the week with a 5.1% gain, its twelfth consecutive weekly gain.

Dow Jones technical analysis estimates the Sensex will trade in a 14,000-15,500 range next week.

India's gross domestic product expanded 5.8% from a year earlier in the January-March quarter, as higher government spending and robust performance in other services offset a slump in manufacturing.

The rate of expansion was higher than a median 5.0% expansion estimated by economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires.

"The buying was very stock-specific, suggesting that traders were taking long positions in select stocks" said Anita Gandhi, the head of institutional business at Arihant Capital Markets.

On the National Stock Exchange, the 50-stock S&P CNX Nifty ended up 111.85 points, or 2.6%, at 4,448.95.

Total traded volume on the Bombay Stock Exchange was INR84.24 billion, compared with Thursday's INR70.07 billion. Gainers outnumbered losers 2,147 to 649, while 56 stocks were unchanged.

The BSE Realty Index gained the most among the 13 sectoral indexes on the exchange, rising 6.8% to 3,819.89. Stocks jumped on expectations that with more companies raising funds through equity share placements with institutions, funding projects and retiring debt will become easier.

DLF, the nation's largest property developer by sales, rose 8.4% to INR403.30. Parsvnath Developers Chairman Pradeep Kumar Jain told CNBC TV18 that it will raise between $100 million and $150 million by selling shares to institutions. Its shares hit a 5% upper limit to close at INR96.80.

ACC jumped 8.6%, the most in percentage terms on the index, to close at INR783 as investors bought heavily into the counter.

Infrastructure companies continued to rise on expectations that the budget, to be presented in the first week of July, will focus heavily on this sector.

Larsen & Toubro rose 4.8% to INR1,405.60, Jaiprakash Asscociates climbed 8.2% to INR207.50, while state-run Bharat Heavy Electricals rose 2.7% to INR2,174.90.

Reliance Industries, India's most-valued company, rose 2.6% to INR2,277.50, while Tata Consultancy rose 6.1% at INR699.75.

State-run Oil & Natural Gas ended up 4.0% at INR1,175.90 after Oil Minister Murli Deora's comments raised hopes that it may not have to bear the subsidy burden to compensate state-run fuel retailers for selling cheaper retail fuel.

Deora said the government will consider deregulating diesel and gasoline prices. Among state-run oil retailers, Hindustan Petroleum rose 8.3% to INR363.30, while Indian Oil gained 6.9% to INR609.30.