Indian shares bounce after worst week in a decade

Indian shares bounced on Monday after their worst week in over a decade on hopes that major central banks would take steps to stabilise financial markets amid the coronavirus epidemic.

The NSE Nifty 50 index rose 2.06% to 11,433 by 0351 GMT, while the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex was up 2.05% at 39,083.17. The indexes posted falls of 7.3% and 7%, respectively, last week.

“The market already corrected sharply lower last week, and there are now rising hopes of rate cuts globally to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus,” said AK Prabhakar, head of research at IDBI Capital in Mumbai.

Investors in domestic stocks also looked past Friday’s data that showed India’s economy expanded at its slowest pace in more than six years in the last three months of 2019.

Fears of a pandemic caused a wipe-out of more than $5 trillion from global share value last week, prompting financial markets to price in policy responses from the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan and the Reserve Bank of Australia.

Stocks in broader Asia steadied on Monday after early falls.

In Mumbai, heavyweight financial stocks accounted for a large portion of gains, with top private-sector lenders HDFC Bank Ltd and ICICI Bank Ltd rising as much as 2% and 3.9%, respectively.

Conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd rose as much as 3%, marking its sharpest intraday jump in nearly four weeks.

Shares of Coal India Ltd climbed 3.9% after reporting a 14.2% rise in February production.