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Bloomberg
India’s benchmark stocks gauge rose for a third day on Monday to close on the verge of a record.
Expectations that the central bank will this week announce its second interest-rate cut for 2019, and a national election that will see Prime Minister Narendra Modi reelected helped boost sentiment in a market that capped its best quarter since June 2018.
Profit-booking in some bank stocks in the final hour of trade kept the Sensex from closing at a new high, traders said. The S&P BSE Sensex Index added 0.5 percent to 38,871.87 after briefly topping its previous record set end of August, while the NSE Nifty 50 Index rose 0.4 percent. The rally mirrored a surge in stocks worldwide after strong manufacturing data out of China helped ease investor worries about a slowdown in global growth.
Foreigners have pumped more than $7 billion into India stocks so far this year on optimism that lower borrowing costs and a second term for Modi in the upcoming polls would support earnings growth in Asia’s third-biggest economy.