Indian markets ended on a weak note on Friday dragged by energy, FMCG, financials, banking, pharma and auto stocks while capital goods managed to trade in positive.
Equity markets opened positive but erased all its initial gains to end near days’ low, turning cautious as India starts reporting Omicron cases. Broader market outperformed and ended the day flat to positive. Thus, despite the 1.2% fall in Nifty, the overall market breadth was in favour of advances with advance-decline ratio at 5:4. On a weekly basis, markets snapped its 2-week loss to end with gains of ~1%.
At the close, the benchmark 30-share index, BSE Sensex tumbled 764.83 points or 1.31% at 57,696.46 with 9 components posting drop. Meanwhile, the broad based NSE Nifty dropped 204.95 points or 1.18% at 17,196.70 with 21 components registering fall.
Biggest gainers in the 30-share index were Larsen & Toubro (0.72%), IndusInd Bank (0.61%), Tata Steel (0.47%) and UltraTech Cement (0.35%).
On the other hand, Power Grid Corporation of India (4.03%), Reliance Industries (3.05%), Kotak Mahindra Bank (2.58%), Asian Paints (2.29%), Bharti Airtel (1.88%), Tech Mahindra (1.81%) and Maruti Suzuki (1.68%) were the major losers in the Sensex. Market breadth was negative with 1,802 advances against 1,454 declines.
Most global markets edged higher ahead of the release of important U.S. nonfarm payroll data which is expected to show a drop in the unemployment rate. However, possibility of more COVID-linked activity restrain and an accelerated pace of stimulus tapering by the U.S. Federal Reserve had curbed the upside.
'Going ahead, market volatility is likely to continue given the uncertainty around the new Omicron variant and Fed tapering. Till the clarity doesn’t emerge over its rate of transmission, hospitalization needs, etc, news flows around it would keep markets unpredictable,' opined Siddhartha Khemka, Head - Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services.
'On the other hand, investors would keep an eye on RBI’s policy decision due next week wherein status quo is likely to be maintained amidst reappearance of Covid variant. However, the correction has made valuations comfortable and given the robust long term fundamentals, investors are recommended to indulge in value buying from time to time,' he added.
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