 "A man looks at a screen across a road displaying the Sensex on the facade of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) building in Mumbai")
Despite a tail-end recovery, markets snapped their two-week winning spree as the S&P BSE Sensex dropped by 198 points to 28,599.03 and the NSE Nifty slipped by 87 points to 8,779.85 due to selling pressure from operators in view of a rise in inflation and lower industrial output in July coupled with fresh foreign capital outflows.
Wholesale inflation soared to a two-year high of 3.74 per cent in August. However, the consumer inflation eased to a five-month low of 5.05 per cent in August, mainly because of a slower rate of price increase in vegetables as well as food and beverages.
Industrial output contracted by 2.4 per cent in July, reflecting the worst performance in 8 months, mainly due to decline in output in manufacturing and capital goods sectors.
The Sensex resumed lower at 28,481.09 and dropped to 28,251.31 due to heavy selling pressure on fears of rising interest by Federal Reserve. However, the 30-share index recovered afterwards to 28,778.64 on fresh buying on receding fears of hike in the US interest rates before ending at 28,599.03, showing a loss of 198.22 points, or 0.69 per cent.
The BSE barometer had gained 1,015 points, or 3.65 per cent, in the previous two weeks.
The NSE Nifty dropped by 86.85 points, or 0.98 per cent, to 8,779.85. The 50-share index had gained 294.15 points, or 3.43 per cent, in the last two weeks.
Meanwhile, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley expressed hope that RBI will keep in mind the decline in retail inflation while deciding on interest rates at its policy review meeting on October 4.
However, investors feared that a possible rate hike by the US Federal Reserve as early as next week could reverse dollar flow into the country, leading to a fall in banking as well as metal stocks.
Meanwhile, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) and foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth Rs 57.68 crore during the week, as per Sebi's record including the provisional figure of September 16.
Among the S&P, BSE sector and industry indices, Metal dipped by 5.67 per cent, followed by Realty 4.40 per cent, Power 3.26 per cent, Capital Goods 2.68 per cent, Banking 2.22 per cent, Auto 1.86 per cent, PSU 1.56 per cent, Consumer Durables 1.16 per cent and Oil&Gas 0.91 per cent.
However, IPO rose by 1.21 per cent, IT 1.17 per cent and Teck gained 0.92 per cent.
Among the Sensex pack, 21 stocks fell, while 9 rose during the week ended Friday.
Tata Steel dropped 8.99 per cent to Rs 359.05 and was the top loser during the week followed by Power Grid Corp (4.33 per cent), M&M (4.25 per cent), Tata Motors (4.21 per cent), SBIN (3.64 per cent), NTPC (3.31 per cent), Larsen (2.89 per cent), ICICI Bank (2.41 per cent), Coal India (2.15 per cent), Axis Bank (1.97 per cent), HUL (1.94 per cent), Bajaj Auto (1.75 per cent), GAIL (1.67 per cent) Sun Pharma (1.59 per cent), Lupin (1.42 per cent) and Dr Reddy (1.30 per cent).
Index heavyweight Reliance Industries (RIL) climbed 3.06 per cent to Rs 1,075.65 followed by Maruti Suzuki (3.05 per cent), Cipla (1.87 per cent), Bharti Airtel (0.78 per cent), HDFC Bank (0.58 per cent), ITC (0.66 per cent) and TCS (0.37 per cent).
The total turnover during the week at BSE declined to Rs 15,352.65 crore from Rs 15,531.06 crore last Friday, while that on NSE rose to Rs 94,082.05 crore from Rs 93,052.84 crore last weekend.
Both the stock markets, BSE and NSE, remained closed on Tuesday (September 13) on account of 'Bakri Id'.
