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Market ended marginally lower on Friday, amid a volatile trading session, weighed down by selling in select index heavyweights.
The 30-share Sensex provisionally ended down 43 points at 27,873 and the 50-share Nifty ended up 5 points at 8,344.
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Updated at 14:28
Markets turned choppy in late noon trades as most index heavyweights witnessed profit taking after both the benchmark indices hit record highs for a fourth straight session on Wednesday.
At 2:30PM, the Sensex was down 83 points to trade at 27,832 mark whereas the Nifty has declined by 16 points to trade at 8,322.
Foreign institutional investors were net buyers in Indian equities worth Rs 1,031 crore on Wednesday, as per provisional stock exchange data.
The Indian rupee was trading lower at Rs 61.52 to the US dollar compared to the previous close of Rs 61.41.
Asian shares were trading mixed on Friday ahead of U.S. employment data later today. Japan's Nikkei ended up 0.5% as sentiment was supported by a pledge from the European Central Bank to take further steps to revive the euro zone economy. Meanwhile, Chinese shares pared early gains and were trading with marginal losses while Hang Seng was down 0.4%.
European stocks edged higher on hopes that the European Central Bank may announce monetary easing measures to boost growth in the euro zone. The CAC, DAX and FTSE 100 were up 0.3-0.4% each.
The BSE Healthcare and Realty indices were the top gainers up 2% followed by Consumer Durables index up 0.9%. Capital Goods, Metal, Power, Auto and Bankex were the top losers.
Pharma shares recouped early losses and were trading with gains. Dr Reddys Lab has gained nearly 5% after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it has granted final approval to Indian drugmaker Dr Reddy's Laboratories and US firm Endo International Plc to make cheaper copies of Roche Holding AG's antiviral Valcyte. The tentative approval granted to Ranbaxy was revoked by FDA.
Sun Pharma has gained nearly 2% after paring early morning loss while Cipla is trading flat with negative bias.
Auto shares are trading mixed with Tata Motors and Maruti Suzuki up between 0.2-0.3%. However, Bajaj Auto and M&M have declined between 0.3-1.3%.
Hero Motocorp was down 1.8% on a block sell-off of 8.5 million its shares by private equity company Bain Capital.
Among bank shares, Axis Bank has gained close to 3% and ICICI Bank is up 0.3% while SBI is down 1.3%. HDFC Bank has declined around 2% on reports that it has been excluded from MSCI India index.
Metal shares continue to lose sheen in today’s trade after the services purchasing managers' index (PMI) compiled by HSBC/Markit pulled back to 52.9 in October, the weakest reading since July, from 53.5 in September. Sesa Sterlite and Coal India are down between 1-1.8%.
Infrastructure scrips are witnessing profit booking after a smart rally on the back of government relaxed foreign direct investment (FDI) rules in the construction sector by reducing minimum built up area as well as capital requirement and easing exit norms. L&T and BHEL have lost between 0.5-1.8%.
L&T is trading lower ahead of its results to be released later today.
Telecom major Bharti Airtel is down 0.7% today. Bharti Airtel has called off its plans to acquire business and assets of Mumbai based Loop Mobile, for about Rs 700 crore, as the Department of Telecom is yet to clear the deal.
Among the index heavyweights Reliance Industries and ITC were down 0.8-1.2% each.
DLF is trading 4% higher at Rs 132 on BSE, in otherwise subdued market, after the Securities Appellant Tribunal (SAT), in an interim relief, allowed real estate giant to redeem its mutual fund investments of Rs 1,806 crore to service its debt.
In the broader market, the BSE Mid-cap index was down 0.5% and Small-cap index was trading flat.
Market breadth was weak with 1,525 losers and 1,324 gainers on the BSE.
