The benchmark Sensex on Friday closed nearly 105 points down at 28,458.10 buckling under fag-end profit booking in IT, oil & gas and healthcare shares, logging its first weekly loss in seven weeks.
After opening in the positive zone at 28,604.50, the BSE Sensex surged to the day's high of 28,651.75 on continued overseas inflows and buying by retail investors.
Soon after, however, it met with resistance at higher levels and fell back to settle at 28,458.10, a fall of 104.72 points or 0.37%. Intra-day, it had touched a low of 28,409.05.
The gauge had rallied 120.11 points in the previous session on supportive domestic and global cues. On a weekly basis, the Sensex fell by about 236 points.
This is its first weekly drop in seven weeks. Overall, 22 constituents of 30-share Sensex including Sun Pharma, Infosys, Hindalco, BHEL, ONGC, Hero Moto and SBI fell.
On similar lines, the 50-share Nifty index ended 26.10 points, or 0.30%, lower at 8,538.30. Fall in shares of Wipro, Tech Mahindra, Dr Reddys, BPCL, TCS, Sun Pharma, Infosys and Cipla stocks weighed on the NSE barometer.
It moved between 8,523.90 and 8,588.35 during the session on alternate bouts of buying and selling. "In absence of any major cues, equity markets traded dull for most part of the session on Friday but profit taking in the last hour pushed indices in red," said Jayant Manglik, President-retail distribution, Religare Securities.
Shares of SAIL ended about 3% down after the government's 5% stake sale in steel major, to raise up to Rs 1,700 crore, began today.
ITC shares continued their rally, and added another 2.27% on hope that a proposal to ban sale of loose cigarettes will be put on hold.
Meanwhile, Foreign Portfolio Investors bought shares worth net Rs 474 crore yesterday as per provisional data. Global cues were conducive as Asian bourses ended higher and European markets also were better in early trades.
Sectorally, the BSE IT index suffered the most by falling 1.83%, followed by the Teck index that fell 1.47%, Healthcare index 1.40%, Oil & Gas index 0.66% and Power index 0.52%, among others. Bucking the trend, Realty, FMCG, Consumer Durables and Metal indices jumped.
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