The Indian equity market witnessed immense volatility throughout the week, on the back of inflation worries and surging crude prices, even as the Sensex ended the last trading day of the week on a positive note. The Indian bourses closed in the red for the second consecutive week after remaining firm for a five-week period beginig July 11. Dealers in the market say that volatility might continue for a few more weeks, following inflationary and crude-oil price concerns.
The 30-share Sensex of Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) staged a smart comeback on Friday to close at 14,401.49 points; but it lost 322.96 points, close to 2.19%, over the previous week. The S&P CNX Nifty of National Stock Exch-ange (NSE), which closed at 4,327.45 points, was down by 2.33% or 103.25 points compared to last week.
The Sensex registered a weak opening on the back of a lacklustre mood in Asian markets; the Hong Kong market was closed for trading while all the other major markets and their measures including Nikkei-225 (Japan), Shanghai Composite (China), Strait Times (Singapore) and Seoul Composite (South Korea) ended with marginal losses.
Indian markets were lacklustre till mid-session owing to this and began to pick up only after European markets opened firmly riding on crude trading at a lower level, dealers said. While the Sensex registered an intra-day gain of 157.76 points or 1.11%, Nifty added 43.60 points or 1.02% over the day.
Hitesh Agarwal, head, research, Angel Broking said, “We might witness volatility in the markets ahead of F&O expiry next week. Even though there were small gains today owing to some buying at the lower level, overall the market breadth had remained negative throughout the day.” He presumed that if negotiations on the India-specific safeguards agreement in the Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG) went off smoothly, it might have a positive impact on the market
Barring realty and public sector undertaking (PSU) sectors, all BSE sectoral indices ended on the positive note on Friday, with BSE metal and bankex ending with the highest gains. Out of 2,725 stocks traded on BSE, 1,209 stocks were in green, 1,414 stocks in red. 102 stocks remained unchanged. The Sensex saw 24 stocks advancing and six ending in red.
Foreign institutional investors (FII) were net sellers at Rs 239.24 crore on the Sensex, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) were net buyers at Rs 450.39 crore.