Indian shares surge over 2pc as easing curbs boost sentiment

BENGALURU: Indian shares rose over 2pc on Monday led by financial stocks, as the country geared up to further open its economy after a months-long lockdown to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The NSE Nifty 50 index was up 2.6pc at 9,823.70 by 0453 GMT, also helped by gains in Asian markets, while the S&P BSE Sensex gained 2.7pc to 33,298.18.

The Nifty 50 rose nearly 6pc over the previous week, led by a 11.7pc rally in beaten-down banking stocks.

The Nifty bank index rose 3.9pc, while the financial index gained 3.7pc.

"The banking sector has under performed the most in the past one month and the starting up of the economy is giving confidence to investors," said Naveen Kulkarni, chief investment officer, Axis Securities.

India permitted restaurants, malls and religious buildings to reopen from June 8 but extended lockdowns in high-risk zones until June 30 as a record high number of cases were detected nationwide on Saturday.

The reopening plan comes as data on Friday showed the domestic economy grew at 3.1pc in the January-March quarter, its slowest pace in at least eight years.

India's unemployment rate in May rose to 23.48pc, according to data released by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy on Monday, reflecting the impact of coronavirus pandemic.

Meanwhile, MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 2.1pc as progress on opening up economies helped offset jitters over riots in US cities.

Both HDFC Bank Ltd and Housing Development Finance Corp Ltd rose 4pc, and were the top boosts to the Nifty 50 index.

Shares of JSW Steel Ltd, the top gainer in the Nifty 50 index, rose 7.2pc.

IDBI Bank Ltd jumped 19.9pc after reporting its first profit in more than three years.