The benchmark indices ended marginally in the red on Friday ahead of the US jobs data. The markets ended their 6-week winning streak with the 50-unit S&P CNX Nifty ending 0.3% lower to 8,538.3 points and the BSE Sensex ending below the 28,500-mark.
On Friday, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth $17 million, while the domestic institutional investors bought $26.78 million, according to provisional data on the exchanges. In YTD, FIIs have bought more than $16 billion worth of shares.
On Friday, the 30-share BSE Sensex ended lower by 104.72 points or 0.4% to 28,458.1 points. The market fall was led by declines in Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, which fell over 2.2%. Export-oriented stocks were under pressure as the rupee showed some recovery. TCS (-2.2%), Sun Pharma (-2.2%), Wipro (-2.19%), Cipla (-1.7%) and Infosys (-1.5%) were among the major Sensex losers. The rupee rebounded 0.24% to end at 61.78 against the dollar.
It was a dismal week, with the benchmark indices retreating for 4 out of 5 sessions and the BSE Sensex ending lower by 0.8% or 235.89 points. On Monday, the markets ended 0.5% lower as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) left the key rates unchanged.
Among its peers, most of the Asian markets edged higher on Friday. The Shanghai Composite rose the most with 1.4% gains. The Nikkei (0.2%), Straits Times (0.6%), Jakarta Composite (0.2%) and Hang Seng (0.7%) all ended in the green. Key European indices were trading in the green at 7.35 pm IST.
Back home, 22 of the 30 Sensex stocks ended in the red on Friday. In the broader market, breadth was weak with 1,603 stocks traded on the BSE ending lower compared with 1,358 advances. Most of the 12 BSE sectoral indices ended in the red. The BSE IT (1.8%), BSE Healthcare (-1.4%), BSE Oil & Gas (-0.6%) and BSE Capital Goods (-0.4%) were among the major losers.
The NSE cash turnover on Friday stood at R17,152.4 crore, while the turnover in the F&O segment stood at R1.28 lakh crore.