Indian shares rise as Fed sticks to script

BENGALURU, July 27 (Reuters) - Indian shares gained on Thursday after the U.S. Federal Reserve stuck to script with a 25 basis-point rate hike and said it is no longer forecasting a recession, with pharma and metal stocks getting a further boost from strong quarterly results.

The Nifty 50 (.NSEI) index was up 0.19% at 19,815.65, while the S&P BSE Sensex (.BSESN) gained 0.14% to 66,799.51 at 9:59 a.m. IST.

Ten of the 13 major sectoral indexes advanced with pharma index (.NIPHARM) jumping 1.95%. The rise in pharma stocks comes after drugmakers Dr Reddys Laboratories (REDY.NS) and Cipla (CIPL.NS) beat the June quarter profit view on strong domestic and North America sales.

Cipla rose 8.84% to hit a nine-month high. Dr. Reddys gained 1.32% after strong results. The stock had gained over 3% in the last three sessions ahead of the results.

The metal index (.NIFTYMET) gained 1.05% to hit a six-month high led by 2.58% rise in Jindal Stainless (JIST.NS) after the company reported 50% rise in June quarter profit.

On the other hand, auto index fell 0.6%, dragged by 6.14% slide in Mahindra & Mahindra (MAHM.NS) after buying 3.53% stake in private lender RBL Bank (RATB.NS).

Asian markets edged higher after the Fed delivered a 25 basis-point rate hike as expected. Fed Chair Jerome Powell reiterated a data-dependent approach to further policy tightening and said the central bank is \“no longer forecasting\” a recession.

\“Economists now think a soft landing (in the U.S.) is more likely than the alternatives, which is one of the reasons the Fed does not seem too worried about pushing rates up,\” said Subho Moulik, chief executive of Appreciate, a Mumbai-based fintech platform that enables investing in global stocks.

Among individual stocks, personal care products maker Colgate-Palmolive (India)(COLG.NS) surged 6.31% to record high on strong results.

Information technology firm Tech Mahindra (TEML.NS) tumbled 5.33% after reporting fall in June quarter profit as clients cut spending.

Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee

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