Reliance Saves The Day Sending India’s Sensex In The Green

(Bloomberg) -- Indian stocks advanced as some investors viewed the benchmark equity index’s decline into correction as an opportunity to buy.

The S&P BSE Sensex Index added 0.3 percent to 34,474.38 in Mumbai after swinging between losses of as much as 1.2 percent and gains of as much as 0.8 percent. The gauge on Friday completed its biggest weekly plunge in more than two years. Seven of 19 sector sub-indexes compiled by BSE Ltd. advanced Monday, led by a gauge of energy companies.

Reliance Industries Ltd. was the biggest boost to the broader gauge, climbing as much as 6.5 percent after last week breaching a technical indicator that some investors read as a sign that declines are overdone. Metal miner and producer Vedanta Ltd. was the worst performer on the Sensex, dropping as much as 15 percent, the most since August 2015.

“A confluence of factors is weighing on the market,” said Viraj Mehta, a fund manager at Mumbai-based Equirus Capital Pvt. “These have reduced the premium over the long-term average at which companies were trading.”

As equities fell on Friday, volatility rose after the central bank chose to keep its interest rates unchanged, triggering a weakening in the local currency, Asia’s worst performer this year. A climb in the price of oil -- India’s top import -- has fueled the rupee’s depreciation and sparked concern economic and company earnings growth may be hurt. The India NSE Volatility Index climbed to its its highest close since February 2016.

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