Indian shares rise for second week in a row

Indian shares rose for a second week in a row, signalling the overall sentiment was turning bullish, but closed 0.1 percent lower on Friday as investors locked gains after an eight-session rally. Energy giant Reliance Industries and financials leading the decline, while automakers raced ahead with the sector index gaining 0.7 percent, as they cheered a rise in their monthly vehicle sales.
The 30-share BSE index slipped 0.13 percent or 24.83 points to 19,420.39, with 14 components declining. It is up 3.2 percent on the week. The index had gained 8.8 percent in the last eight sessions. It jumped 9.1 percent in March, posting its best performance since September 2010, as foreign institutional investors (FIIs) turned net buyers of Indian equities after staying net sellers in the first two months of this calendar year.
"The sentiment looks bullish from here - looking at the last few days of gains and inflows from FIIs," said R.K. Gupta, managing director of Taurus Mutual Fund. "I do not rule out a small correction, which could be triggered by profit booking, but things are definitely looking up from here."
For the year to date, despite the $1.6 billion fund inflows in March, as detailed by the provisional data, FIIs remain net sellers of $660 million of Indian equities. The banking sector index which had fared better than other sector indexes in the March quarter, shed 0.8 percent. It had gained 12.3 percent in March.
Leading lenders State Bank of India and ICICI Bank dropped 1.8 percent and 0.9 percent. Reliance Industries shed 1.2 percent after rising 2.5 percent in two previous sessions. Advancing shares outpaced declining ones 3.2:1, while 289 million shares were traded on the BSE, slightly higher than their 30-day daily average volume of 279 million shares.The 50-share NSE index closed 0.1 percent lower at 5,826.05 points.