Indian shares rise

Indian shares edged up 0.4 percent on Tuesday to their best close in almost three weeks, led by top vehicle maker Tata Motors on a brokerage upgrade and outsourcers such as Wipro as the rupee weakened. Trading was choppy and the undercurrent weakening as the market headed back to its 2009 highs, as investors turned cautious on equities world-wide after a recent rally.
Leading financials such as State Bank of India and ICICI Bank weighed after CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets said the risk of a sharp rise in bond yields could hurt bank earnings. "SBI is the most vulnerable to treasury losses," CLSA said. Citigroup also said it was cautious on the banking sector in the near term. State Bank of India, the country's top lender, fell 2.4 percent to 1,747.35 rupees, while private-sector rival ICICI slid 1.1 percent to 759.40 rupees.
Tata Motors, which owns the Jaguar and Land Rover brands, jumped 7.1 percent to 490.25 rupees, its best close in 14 months, after Credit Suisse upgraded it to "outperform" from "neutral," and raised its target on the stock to 676 rupees from 153 rupees. "We are now confident of Tata Motors' turning around its financials strongly aided by the strength in its domestic business to start with, but boosted by JLR's turnaround in fiscal-year 2011 and beyond," analyst Govindarajan Chellappa said in a note.
IT-services exporter Wipro climbed 3.9 percent to 544.50 rupees, its highest close since late December 2007, while larger rival Infosys Technologies rose 1 percent to 2,096.10 rupees, its highest close in more than 22 months, helped by losses in the rupee.
Other major gainers included energy giant Reliance Industries, which has the biggest weighting in the main index, and diversified engineering and construction firm Larsen & Toubro. Reliance advanced 2.5 percent to 2,023.75 rupees, while Larsen added 1.5 percent to 1,573.60 rupees. The 30-share BSE index ended up 0.38 percent, or 59.72 points, at 15,688.47, its best close since August 5, recovering from morning losses of as much as 1.3 percent.
The benchmark is on a four-day winning streak that has seen it rise 5.9 percent and moved the market into positive territory for August after it had fallen earlier in the month on worries about a weak monsoon, high valuations and looming inflation. In the broader market, gainers led losers 1,693 to 1,070 on relatively heavy volume of 534 million shares.