Mumbai July 7 (IANS) Negative global cues and selling pressure in IT banking and consumer durables stocks pulled the Indian equity markets down on Friday.
The wider Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) closed the day s trade at 9 665.80 points -- lower by 8.75 points or 0.09 per cent.
Similarly the 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) of the BSE which opened at 31 373.52 points closed at 31 360.63 points -- down 8.71 points or 0.03 per cent from its previous close at 31 369.34 points.
The Sensex touched a high of 31 426.29 points and a low of 31 286.62 points during the intra-day trade.
However the BSE market breadth was bullish -- with 1 396 advances and 1 280 declines.
"Markets ended marginally lower on Friday as they traded in a range. Today s losses came after two sessions of gains. Weak global cues weighed on sentiment " Deepak Jasani Head of Retail Research HDFC Securities told IANS.
"However gains in index heavyweight Reliance Industries and a sharp fall in crude oil prices provided support to the Nifty. Major Asian markets ended on a negative note barring the Straits and Shanghai indices. European indices like CAC 40 and DAX traded lower " Jasani added.
On the currency front the rupee strengthened by 19 paise to 64.59 to a US dollar from its previous close of 64.78 to a greenback.
In investments provisional data with the exchanges showed that foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold stocks worth Rs 522.08 crore while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought scrips worth Rs 720.08 crore.
"Equity markets traded flat in the first half but in the later session the markets tried to recover and traded in green for a short time to close in the red thereafter " said Dhruv Desai Director and Chief Operating Officer of Tradebulls.
"Market turnover was on the lower side post the weekly expiry. The small-cap and mid-cap sectors closed on a flat note while auto bank oil and gas FMCG and healthcare sectors ended in the green."
Sector-wise the S&P BSE IT index fell by 72.16 points the banking index by 65.50 points and the consumer durables index by 60.30 points.
On the other hand the S&P BSE healthcare index rose by 145.95 points the oil and gas index by 58.65 points and the energy index by 56.65 points.
Major Sensex gainers on Friday were: Reliance Industries up 3.43 per cent at Rs 1 490.80; Lupin up 3.28 per cent at Rs 1 116.75; DrReddy s Lab up 1.39 per cent at Rs 2 705.10; Sun Pharma up 0.88 per cent at Rs 549.70; and Bharti Airtel up 0.85 per cent at Rs 384.65.
Major Sensex losers were: ICICI Bank down 1.28 per cent at Rs 289.80; Axis Bank down 1.25 per cent at Rs 503.30; Infosys down 1.21 per cent at Rs 936; Asian Paints down 1.20 per cent a Rs 1 117.15; and HDFC down 1.10 per cent at Rs 1 629.20.
--IANS
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