Mumbai: Heavy selling of Maruti Suzuki and Zee stocks during the final hour of trade on Friday dragged the Sensex and Nifty down.
The realty sector closed losing over 4 per cent while auto stocks ended 3 per cent lower.
However, the Asian markets closed on a positive note and European indices like FTSE 100, DAX and CAC 40 traded in the green.
“It was certainly one of the worst days for our market in the last few weeks. Looking at the benchmark index, one would not get the right picture. Index constituents Zee had the biggest fall in the last five years. Automobile giant Maruti continues with its disaster run, corrected more than 7 per cent after posting dreadful set of numbers,” said Sameet Chavan, Chief Analyst-Technical and Derivatives, Angel Broking.
The selling pressure intensified after Maruti Suzuki reported its third quarter results which missed estimates. The auto major’s net profit declined by 17 per cent, leading to a dip of over 7 per cent in the auto major’s stock.
“Markets ended with losses on Friday after a positive morning session. Intense selling in the afternoon session pulled the main indices lower,” said Deepak Jasani of HDFC Securities.
The BSE Sensex lost 169.56 points or 0.47 per cent to close at 36,025.54. It touched an intra-day high 36,474.48 and a low of 35,953.15 points.
The Nifty50 slipped below the 10,800-mark, down 69.25 points or 0.64 per cent at 10,780.55.
Stocks-wise, Yes Bank gained the most on the Sensex, followed by HCL Tech, Bharti Airtel, TCS and Vedanta.
Maruti Suzuki turned out to be the top loser on Sensex with 7.40 per cent fall. Hero MotoCorp, Tata Motors (DVR), ICICI Bank and Asian Paints declined in the range of 2 to 4 per cent.
“Technically, we are still hovering around the pullback zone of ‘falling trend line’; but the way some of the stocks corrected today, certainly does not bode well for the bulls. As far as levels are concerned, 10,750 followed by 10,692 would be seen as a crucial support zone.” Chavan added.
The rupee lost 11 paise to settle at Rs 71.18 per US dollar from its previous close of 71.07.
Foreign institutional investors (FII) bought Rs 689.28 crore worth of stocks on Friday while the domestic institutional investors (DII) sold Rs 147.35 crore worth of stocks.
[source_without_link]IANS[/source_without_link]