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Tuesday, December 01, 2009

India Stocks Advance to Highest in a Month; Reliance Climbs

Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- India’s benchmark stock index climbed to its highest in more than a month as Morgan Stanley and Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. raised their growth estimates after the country’s economy expanded at the fastest pace in 1 1/2 years.

Reliance Industries Ltd., the nation’s most valuable company, advanced 3.4 percent. Sterlite Industries (India) Ltd., India’s largest copper producer, gained 3 percent.

“India’s GDP growth was way above market expectations and will prompt an upward revision of full year fiscal 2010 growth closer to 7 percent,” said Ashutosh Datar, a Mumbai-based strategist at IIFL Ltd. “The underlying economic momentum has picked up strongly and it will get stronger over the next two to three quarters as global economic recovery builds and domestic demand gets stronger.”

The Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensitive Index, or Sensex, gained 273.54, or 1.6 percent, to 17,199.76, its highest since Oct. 20. The S&P CNX Nifty Index on the National Stock Exchange rose 1.8 percent to 5,121.90. The BSE 200 Index added 1.8 percent to 2,143.95.

Morgan Stanley expects India’s gross domestic product to expand 6.7 percent in the year ending March 2010, more than its earlier estimate of 6.4 percent, while Kotak increased its forecast to 6.9 percent from 6 percent.

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