India shares higher at close of trade; Nifty 50 up 0.17%

India equities were higher at the close on Friday, as gains in the Real Estate, Technology and IT sectors propelled shares higher.

At the close in NSE, the Nifty 50 added 0.17% to hit a new all time high, while the BSE Sensex 30 index climbed 0.27%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the Nifty 50 were Asian Paints Ltd. (NS:ASPN), which rose 3.85% or 127.95 points to trade at 3448.60 at the close. Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. (NS:MAHM) added 2.77% or 21.00 points to end at 779.45 and Eicher Motors Ltd. (NS:EICH) was up 2.59% or 73.95 points to 2931.00 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Tata Steel Ltd (NS:TISC), which lost 3.53% or 46.60 points to trade at 1272.10 in late trade. JSW Steel Ltd (NS:JSTL) declined 2.67% or 18.10 points to end at 659.15 and State Bank Of India (NS:SBI) shed 2.01% or 9.05 points to 440.75.

The top performers on the BSE Sensex 30 were Asian Paints Ltd. (BO:ASPN) which rose 3.72% to 3443.60, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. (BO:MAHM) which was up 2.74% to settle at 779.20 and HCL Technologies Ltd (BO:HCLT) which gained 2.24% to close at 1357.65.

The worst performers were Tata Steel Ltd (BO:TISC) which was down 3.60% to 1271.90 in late trade, State Bank Of India (BO:SBI) which lost 2.00% to settle at 440.80 and AXIS Bank Ltd. (BO:AXBK) which was down 1.74% to 798.20 at the close.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 1101 to 607 and 58 ended unchanged; on the Bombay Stock Exchange, 1877 fell and 1220 advanced, while 137 ended unchanged on the India National Stock Exchange.

The India VIX, which measures the implied volatility of Nifty 50 options, was up 1.93% to 16.9225.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for December delivery was up 0.33% or 5.85 to $1755.65 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in November unchanged 0.00% or 0.00 to hit $73.30 a barrel, while the November Brent oil contract rose 0.17% or 0.13 to trade at $77.38 a barrel.

USD/INR was down 0.03% to 73.777, while EUR/INR fell 0.07% to 86.5485.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.15% at 93.172.