Market Wrap, Oct 23: Here's all that happened in the markets today

A healthy buying in auto, technology, and select bank stocks helped benchmark indices settle in the green on Friday. 

The S&P BSE Sensex settled 127 points, or 0.31 per cent higher at 40,686 levels while NSE's Nifty ended at 11,930, up 34 points, or 0.28 per cent. The volatility index, India Vix, slipped over 3.5 per cent to 21.82 levels. 

On a weekly basis, Sensex gained 1.75 per cent while Nifty added 1.42 per cent. 

Auto major Maruti (up over 4 per cent) ended as the biggest gainer on Sensex while UltraTech Cement (down over 2 per cent) was the top loser. 

The broader market continued to outperform frontline indices. The S&P BSE MidCap index gained 0.59 per cent while the S&P BSE SmallCap index rallied 0.7 per cent to 15,135 levels. 

Among sectoral indices, Nifty Auto gained nearly 3 per cent to 8,095 levels.

Global markets

Global stocks barely budged on Friday as investors tightened positions with less than two weeks to go before the US presidential election and awaited a breakthrough in stimulus talks in Washington.

Shares in Asia hardly moved, with MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan flat while Japan’s Nikkei ticked up 0.2 per cent.

The CSI300 index of mainland China also edged up 0.2 per cent.

In commodities, oil steadied near $42 a barrel, heading for its first weekly drop in three, as surging coronavirus cases in the United States and Europe raise concerns about demand and Libyan output rises.