A benchmark index of Indian equities markets, the 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex), closed Friday's trade down 231 points or 0.78 percent.
The wider 50-scrip Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) also also closed the day's trade in the red. It closed 61.70 points or 0.69 percent down at 8,833.60 points.
The Sensex of the S&P Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 29,446.21 points, closed at 29,231.41 points, down 230.86 points or 0.78 percent from its previous day's close at 29,462.27 points.
The Sensex had touched a high of 29,462.09 points and a low of 29,178.26 points in the intra-day trade.
"Today market opened with a negative note and traded sideways throughout the day market participants experienced highly volatile movements," said Alex Mathews, head of research at Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services.
"The Nifty volatility index, India VIX stood at 21.2675 up around 4.26 percent. Volatility is likely to increase in the days to come ahead of the February expiry and union budget."
The FIIs (foreign institutional investors) continued to infuse funds into the market. They were net buyers in the capital market segment and bought shares worth Rs.1,542.70 crore Thursday.
On the other hand, the DIIs (domestic institutional investors) were net sellers Thursday. They sold shares worth Rs.195.74 crore as per the provisional data from the stock exchanges.
Sector-wise selling pressure was observed in oil and gas, information technology (IT), bank, technology, entertainment and media (TECK) and metal sectors. However, healthy buying took place in fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), consumer durables and realty stocks.
The S&P BSE oil and gas index plunged 177.93 points, followed by IT index declined by 149.65 points, bank index decreased by 103.02 points, TECK index was lower by 78.27 points and metal index fell 54.25 points.
However, FMCG index gained 63.76 points, consumer durables index was higher by 27.09 points and realty index was up 15.95 points.
The major Sensex gainers were: BHEL, up 5.18 percent at Rs.275.20; ITC, up 1.75 percent at Rs.395.90; DrReddy's Lab, up 0.53 percent at Rs.3,401.65; Tata Motors, up 0.36 percent at Rs.578.80; and GAIL, up 0.26 percent at Rs.409.
The losers were: Reliance Industries, down 3.12 percent at Rs.873.25; Tata Power, down 2.66 percent at Rs.85.95; ICICI Bank, down 2.20 percent at Rs.331.15; Bharti Airtel, down 1.98 percent at Rs.349.75; and Infosys, down 1.82 percent at Rs.2,284.30.
