By Rohit Vaid and Rituraj Baruah
Mumbai, Feb 24 (IANS) The key Indian equity indices remained subdued during the last trade week as prevailing India-Pakistan tensions along with high global crude oil prices dented investors’ sentiments.
However, the Central government’s announcement to recapitalise PSU banks, healthy fund inflow on Thursday and Friday and a strong rupee, aided the market to make minuscule gains on a week-on-week basis.
The key equity indices also snapped their longest consecutive sessions fall in the last eight years.
“Frontline indices remained ranged last week. The underlying trend in Mid-cap and Small-cap indices became favourable for bulls in the last three trading sessions of the week,” said Sahil Kapoor, Chief Market Strategist, Research, Edelweiss Wealth Management.
Consequently, the S&P BSE Sensex rose 62.53 points, 0.17 per cent, over the week to end at 35,871.48 points.
The broader NSE Nifty50 finished at 10,791.65, up 67.25 points or 0.6 per cent from its previous week’s close.
“After the government announced recapitalisation move for banks, domestic markets got boosted to some extent,” D.K. Aggarwal, Chairman and Managing Director, SMC Investments and Advisors said.
“The government has said that it would inject Rs 48,239 crore into 12 such lenders as part of its recapitalisation programme. Meanwhile, strong fund inflows from institutional investors have also supported the markets to some extent.”
According to Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research for HDFC Securities: “Markets ended with marginal gains this week after bouncing back sharply from a low of 10,585 points on Tuesday.
“The crucial support of 10,583 points was therefore held. The recent rally has also led to the Nifty closing above its 200-day EMA (exponential moving average).”
In terms of fund flows, Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) bought stocks worth Rs 5,026.41 crore in the week ended Friday, whereas domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought stocks worth Rs 4,654.84 crore.
On the currency front, the rupee appreciated by 30 paise to 71.03 against the US dollar over the previous week.
Sector-wise, the top sectoral gainers for the week were metal, realty and media Nifty indices, while top losers were IT and FMCG indices, Jasani said.
The top gainers on the Sensex were Vedanta, which rose 14.82 per cent during the week ended Friday, followed by ONGC and Tata Motors that ended higher by 9.96 per cent and 8.35 per cent, respectively.
The major losers were Tata Consultancy Services, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Indusind Bank which ended 5.17 per cent, 3.33 per cent and 3.08 per cent down, respectively, on a week-on-week basis.
(Rohit Vaid can be reached at [email protected] and Rituraj Baruah can be contacted at [email protected])
–IANS
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