Sensex up; rupee strengthens

Investors liquidating short positions, coupled with a firm trend in Europe, supported the late recovery, helping erase the initial losses.The 30-share index started on a bearish note, but late buying helped it settle up 87.53 points, or 0.27%, at 32,325.41. The gauge had lost 337 points in the previous two days.The NSE Nifty was above the 10,000 mark at the close at 10,066.40, up 52.75 points – or 0.53% – after hitting a high of 10,075.25. On a weekly basis, the BSE managed to sign off with gains for the fifth straight week by rising 15.53 points, or 0.04%. NSE too ended up 51.90 points, or 0.51%.Drugmakers, including Sun Pharmaceutical Industries and Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, dropped the most on the Sensex and the Nifty, after Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, the world’s biggest maker of generic medicines, slashed its profit forecast for the second time this year amid an acceleration in price erosion and delays in US product approvals.In the Sensex chart, Hero MotoCorp blazed a trail, gaining the most by 3.11% on the back of encouraging earnings numbers.Coal India jumped 3.04% and Tata Steel 2.85%. Consumer durables hit it big, with a rise of 4.21%, followed by oil and gas and metal. Healthcare was not as lucky, plunging 0.94%. Pharma shares such as Dr Reddy’s, Sun Pharma and Lupin fell by up to 3.76%. “The markets are overvalued and something from the left field will happen to bring them down,” said Andrew Holland, chief executive officer at Avendus Capital in Mumbai. “We are waiting for the bubble to burst and the markets will be range-bound till that happens.”India’s key gauges are the best performers this year among the major Asian markets after the Hang Seng Index. They have only twice dropped more than 1% in a day in 2017. Here are the latest updatesMeanwhile the rupee closed fresh two-year high against the US dollar before the US payrolls data. According to a Bloomberg report, payroll data may provide the next inflection point, as traders look for clues on the strength of the world’s largest economy and the US Federal Reserve’s next policy move.The rupee ended at 63.58 a dollar – a level last seen on July 21, 2015, up 0.17% from its Thursday’s close of 63.69. The rupee opened at 63.67 a dollar and touched a high and a low of 63.58 and 63.73 respectively.On weekly basis, rupee rose nearly 1%, its biggest weekly jump since March 2017. Gains in the rupee was also supported by continued inflows by the foreign institutional investors in the local equity and bond markets on the political and economic stability and on the hopes of more reforms by the government.So far this year, the rupee has gained 6.8%, while foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought $8.85bn and $18.25bn in equity and debt markets, respectively.The 10-year bond yield closed at 6.441%, compared to its previous close of 6.43%. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions. Asian currencies were trading higher. South Korean won was up 0.3%, Philippines peso 0.18%, Taiwan dollar 0.14%, China offshore 0.1%, Singapore dollar 0.06% and Thai baht 0.05%. However, Japanese yen was down 0.08%.