Sensex soars 359 points; Bank, metal stocks rally

Indian stock markets were trading up by about 1.8 per cent in the afternoon session on Friday, with all major indices in the green.

Domestic market sentiment was buoyed on speculations that Federal Reserve could maintain monetary stimulus to the US economy next year on fears of the 16-day partial US government shutdown, which ended this week, curbing the country's economic growth.

It was also boosted by data showing that foreign funds made substantial purchases of Indian stocks yesterday. They bought shares worth Rs 1,109.93 crore yesterday, as per provisional data from the stock exchanges.

At 1.20 p.m., the 30-share BSE index Sensex was up 359.27 points (1.76 per cent) at 20,774.78 and the 50-share NSE index Nifty was up 112.35 points (1.86 per cent) at 6,158.20.

All BSE sectoral indices were trading in the green. Among them, metal, banking and capital goods indices were the star-performers and were up 3.83 per cent, 2.95 per cent and 2.47 per cent, respectively.

SSLT, Tata Steel, Hindalco, ICICI Bank and L&T were the top five Sensex gainers, while Bajaj Auto was the only loser. Volatility index, India Vix, was at 20.34, down 3.41 per cent.

European stocks rose for a seventh day to a 2008 high, while Asian equities climbed to a five-month high as China’s economic growth accelerated in the third quarter as Premier Li Keqiang spurred factory output and investment to meet the government’s expansion goal for 2013.

European indices, CAC-40, FTSE-100 and DAX were in the green.

Japan's Nikkei was down 24.97 points or 0.17 per cent at 14,561.50, Hong Kong's Hang Seng surged 220.91 points or 0.96 per cent to 23,315.80 and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was up 38.36 points or 0.73 per cent at 5,321.47.

China's economic growth rebounded to 7.8 per cent year-on-year in the third quarter of this year, after slowing to 7.5 per cent in the second quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics reported on Friday.

The new data took the total increase of China’s estimated gross domestic product in the first nine months of the year to 7.7 per cent, putting the ruling Communist Party on track to surpass its annual growth target of 7.5 per cent.