A fall in European shares led by British lender Northern Rock which was down by 25% after approaching the Bank of England (BoE) for emergency funds resulted in Indian markets losing its early upbeat mood on Friday.

The 30-share Sensex of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), though opened the day on a high note with an upward gap of 99.22 points at 15,713.66 tracking strong Asian markets, lost 220.85 points from its intra-day high of 15,824.65 points.

The benchmark index closed the day at 15,603.80 points down by 10.64 points or 0.07%, but managed to close the week with a marginal gain of 13.38 points or 0.09%. However, other Asian markets closed the week on a high note gaining in the range of 0.50% to 2%.

On the other hand, the broader S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) ended the day at 4,518 points down by 0.24% or 10.95 points.

Meanwhile, India?s headline inflation based on wholesale price index dropped to 3.5% for the week ended September 7, 2007, as against 3.7% reported a week earlier.

Gaurang Shah, chief manager, Geojit Financial Services Ltd, said, ?The European sentiments had only a marginal impact on the Indian markets. Indian markets fell mainly on account of profit booking and Friday being the last trading day of the week, investors were a bit hesitant to carry-over their positions to the next week. However, Indian markets have started to react positively to the domestic fundamentals and at every lower level, good amount of buying is coming. In the coming days the market will definitely scale new highs.?

On Friday, the market breadth was negative with 1,744 stocks losing ground on BSE when compared to 964 stocks that had advanced. Among the Sensex pack 22 stocks came down while 8 stocks advanced.

Notable gainers among the index constituents included ICICI Bank surging by Rs 23.30 or 2.64% at Rs 907.15, HDFC Bank gaining Rs 16.10 or 1.33% at Rs 1,228.70 while L&T rose by Rs 23 or 0.90% to close at Rs 2,592.

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) touched an all-time high of Rs 2,069.50 before closing the day at Rs 2,034.50 gaining Rs 8 or 0.39%.