By Rohit Vaid and Rituraj Baruah
Mumbai, Feb 23 (IANS) The key Indian equity indices remained subdued during the week as India-Pakistan tensions along with high global crude oil prices dented investors’ sentiments.
But the government’s announcement to recapitalise PSU banks, healthy fund inflow on Thursday and Friday, and a strong rupee aided the market make minuscule gains on a week-on-week basis.
The indices also snapped their longest consecutive sessions fall in the past 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.
The broader NSE Nifty50 finished at 10,791.65, up 67.25 points (0.6 per cent) from the last week’s close.
“After the government announced recapitalisation for banks, domestic markets got boosted to some extent,” said D.K. Aggarwal, Chairman and Managing Director, SMC Investments and Advisors.
“The government has said it would inject Rs 48,239 crore into 12 lenders as part of the recapitalisation programme. Strong fund inflows from institutional investors 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 Rs 5,026.41 crore stocks in the week ended Friday, whereas domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought Rs 4,654.84 crore stocks.
On the currency front, the Indian rupee appreciated by 30 paise to 71.03 against the US dollar over the previous week.
Sector-wise, the top sectoral gainers were metal, realty and media Nifty indices. 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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