Markets end flat on Friday as investors remain edgy ahead of poll results on Saturday

Victory for BJP in Uttar Pradesh will boost PM Narendra Modi’s chances of winning the 2019 general election. It would also give the party more number of legislators in the Rajya Sabha where it doesn’t have a majority, improving the government’s chances of passing key reform bills.

The 30-share Sensex ended 17 points higher at 28,946, while the 50-share Nifty settled the day at 8,934, up 7 points.

In the broader market, the BSE Midcap was down 0.2%, while BSE Smallcap fell 0.1%.

Bharti Airtel, TCS, L&T and HeroMoto Corp were the top gainers on BSE Sensex, while ICICI Bank, NTPC, PowerGrid and Bajaj Auto were the draggers.

IT stocks rose after losing for two sessions, with TCS, Wipro and Infosys climbing 0.5-1%.

Edelweiss Financial Services moved higher by 4.5% to Rs 140, bouncing back 10% from its early morning low of Rs 127, after a more than 8% of total equity capital of the company exchanged hands via multiple block deals on BSE. The stock settled 0.6% higher for the day.

Shares of Jindal Steel and Power settled 6% higher after Citigroup raised its target price to Rs 200 from Rs 140 earlier, citing operational capacity has potential to generate higher EBITDA.

Investors were also aggressively applying to the initial public offering (IPO) of Avenue Supermarts, the operator of supermarket retail chain D-Mart. According to data available on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the issue has been oversubscribed 52 times as of 2:00 pm on Friday—the closing day of the issue. It received bids worth for 232.63 crore shares against the total issue size of 4.43 crore shares. It received bids worth for 48.31 crore shares against the total issue size of 4.43 crore shares.