Sensex falls 884 points from day’s high, ends 77 points down; Nifty holds 17,100
Benchmark indices ended a week of extreme volatility marginally in the red note on Friday, following the US Federal Reserve’s monetary policy meeting.
The S&P BSE Sensex index had started gap-up and had extended its rally to hit a high of 58,084-mark, up 807 points intra-day. However, a sharp sell-off in the last hour of trade dragged the index in the negative zone, settling 77 points, or 0.13 per cent, lower at 57,200.
The Nifty50 shut shop at 17,102, down 8 points or 0.05 per cent. It was 271 points lower from its intra-day high of 17,373.
The indices’ breadth was slightly skewed towards buyers as 14 of the 30 constituents on the Sensex and 19 of the 50 constituents on the Nifty ended in the red. The losses were led by Maruti Suzuki, Tech M, Power Grid, Hero MotoCorp, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, SBI, and Bajaj Finserv. All these stocks were down in the range of 1 to 3 per cent.
On the upside, NTPC, UPL, ONGC, Sun Pharma, IndusInd Bank, Tata Consumer Products, and ITC gained up to 4 per cent to end as top performers.
For the week, the frontline indices are down 3% each.
In the broader markets, the BSE MidCap and SmallCap indices bucked the trend and ended 1 per cent higher each with LIC Housing Finance, Castrol India, Apollo Hospitals, Mindtree, Sun TV, Orient Bell, and HT Media rallying up to 18.5 per cent.
Kriti Industries, Mahindra Logistics, HG Infra, TVS Motor, RBL Bank, and IDBI Capital were the worst hit stocks from the space, down between 3 and 13 per cent.
Among sectors, financials and autos were the only losers today. The Nifty Bank index slipped 0.7 per cent while the Nifty Auto index dropped 0.6 per cent.
On the contrary, the Nifty IT, Pharma, and Realty indices gained around 1 per cent each.
