BENGALURU: Indian shares rose in a trading session on Saturday, helped by a bounce in banking stocks after an HDFC Bank-led slide earlier in the week, while investors awaited earnings reports from large private lenders, due later in the day.
The blue-chip Nifty 50 rose 0.16% to 21,656.95, while the S&P BSE Sensex advanced 0.14% to 71,781.64, as of 9:31 a.m. IST.
The equity market is trading in a full session on Saturday, and will remain shut on Monday due to a public holiday in Maharashtra state and as the central government observes a half-working day on the occasion of the inauguration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya city.
The Nifty Bank index rose 0.7% on Saturday, after losing 5% over the last four sessions after top private lender HDFC Bank reported disappointing results.
HDFC Bank, an index heavyweight, rose 1% following a more than 12% slide post its results.
IT bump not enough for Indian shares to shrug off HDFC Bank-led weakness
Digital payments firm Paytm climbed 1.5% after reporting an operating profit for the fifth consecutive quarter on account of festive season-led sales.
Also aiding sentiment was a record high close overnight for the S&P 500 on Wall Street.
FMCG giant Hindustan Unilever, however, slid 2% after a smaller-than-expected profit increase, hit by low rural demand and increased competition in the consumer goods space.
On Friday, IT stocks helped the benchmark indexes in Mumbai close higher, but not by enough to avoid a weekly loss after a three-session losing streak sparked by HDFC Bank.
HDFC’s smaller rivals ICICI Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank are set to report results later in the day.
The stock market was earlier set to trade in two special sessions on Saturday as the exchanges looked to test out a failsafe system for trading.
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