Indian shares logged third straight weekly gain and touched a 29-month high on Friday, as robust US earnings sent the regional markets higher, but closed off highs on caution ahead of European banks' stress test results. Third-largest outsourcer Wipro rose as much as 4.2 percent as it posted a forecast-beating, 31-percent rise in quarterly profit and said it was seeing strong business environment, pulling up sectoral stocks early.
But, profit sales dragged down shares which closed 0.8 percent lower at 412.10 rupees, preventing the stock from breaching 451.80 rupees, its highest level in a decade according to data from Thomson Reuters. Wipro's upbeat results had pushed the sector leader Tata Consultancy Services to a record high of 850 rupees in the day. TCS closed 0.5 percent lower at 838.50 rupees while Infosys Technologies firmed 0.9 percent.
BSE index rose for the third day and closed 0.1 percent or 17.83 points higher at 18,130.98 - after hitting 18,237.56 - its highest level since February 2008. In the broader market, losers outnumbered gainers in a ratio of 1.5:1 in a relatively better volume of 453 million shares.
The benchmark gained nearly 1 percent for the week. Fourteen of its components advanced. It is up 3.8 percent so far in 2010, as foreign funds invested a net of $8.8 billion into Indian equities. In 2009, they had bought a record $17.5 billion of stocks and helped power an 81 percent rally. For the week to July 21, Emerging Market Equity funds took in more than $800 million for a second week in a row, GEM Equity Funds absorbed $796 million, data from fund tracker EPFR Global showed. The 50-share NSE index, or Nifty, rose 0.1 percent to 5,449.10 points.