Sensex ends weaker, sees low volume

Indian stocks ended marginally weaker on Thursday in low volume trade, dragged down by financials after a report from the central bank on Wednesday raised concerns over weak corporate balance sheets and bad loans among banks.

Shares of ICICI Bank ended down 1.49 per cent.

The Sensex ended down 0.04 per cent, while the Nifty lost 0.06 per cent.

However, the indices posted their second consecutive weekly gain, up about 1.3 per cent each.

Indian financial markets will be closed on Friday for the Christmas holiday.

Out of the 30-share Sensex, 13 ended lower, while NTPC ended unchanged at Rs 139.

Major gainers were Bharti Airtel (two per cent), GAIL (1.1 per cent), Tata Motors (one per cent), Bajaj Auto (0.6 per cent), Hero MotoCorp (0.6 per cent), Tata Consultancy Services (0.5 per cent), ITC (0.53 per cent), Adani Ports (0.5 per cent), Asian Paints (0.4 per cent) and Mahindra & Mahindra (0.4 per cent). However, ICICI Bank fell 1.5 per cent, followed by Maruti 0.8 per cent, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation 0.62 per cent, SBI 0.5 per cent, HDFC 0.46 per cent and Dr Reddy's 0.32 per cent.

 

Among the BSE sectoral indexes, telecom rose one per cent followed by metals 0.7 per cent, utilities 0.8 per cent, industrials 0.6 per cent, power 0.7 per cent and capital goods 0.55 per cent.

While, consumer durables eased by 0.91 per cent, bankex fell 0.42 per cent and realty dropped 0.23 per cent.

The market breadth turned positive as 1,556 stocks ended higher, 1,116 closed lower, while 233 ruled steady out of the total 2,905 stocks.

The total turnover dropped to Rs 2,732.75 crore from Rs 3,048.54 crore on Wednesday.