Mumbai: In volatile trade, the Sensex on Friday shed 67 points to close at one-week low of 17,783.21 amid selling in interest-rate sensitive sectors, a weak rupee and insipid global trends.
After a slow start mirroring the trend in global markets, the Sensex fell by 125 points intra-day as domestic issues over coal allocation continued to haunt the markets.
While there was a partial recovery in the last hour, the BSE benchmark index still closed with a loss of 67.01 points, or 0.38 per cent, compared to yesterday's close.
Similarly, the wide-based NSE 50-issue Nifty also declined by 28.65 points, or 0.53 per cent, to finish at 5,386.70.
Brokers said the domestic sentiment remained bearish as the Reserve Bank in its FY12 annual report yesterday stated inflation remains the cornerstone of monetary policy action.
Along with the rupee depreciating by 18 paise to 55.44 a dollar, a weakening trend in Asia and lower opening in Europe on signs of slower growth in the US and China and amid rising concerns of Eurozone crisis did not help Indian stock market.
A fall in key stocks like RIL, ICICI Bank, Infosys, Tata Steel, L&T, SBI, M&M and Jindal Steel mainly kept the market under pressure, while rise in ONGC, ITC, Coal India and HDFC restricted the Sensex's loss to some extent.
The interest-rate sensitive realty and banking stocks suffered the most on fears that unchanged borrowing cost might hurt home sales and lending business, said traders.
"Banking and power stocks faced most selling pressure today. RBI has hinted that it might not cut interest rates in near future...European markets also opened lower which underpinned the bearish sentiment," said Nidhi Sarswat, Senior Research Analyst, Bonanza Portfolio.
Pharma stocks Cipla and Dr Reddy's inched up in Sensex as they are being preferred as "defensive" plays, according to Nagji K Rita, CMD, Inventure Growth & Securities.
Key indices from China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan ended down between 0.37-1.25 per cent.
European markets were also quoting lower in the afternoon deals on fading optimism about further monetary easing. The CAC was down by 0.38 per cent, the DAX by 0.14 per cent and the FTSE was almost unchanged compared to Thursday.
Global markets were weak after St. Louis Fed President James Bullard threw cold water on expectations on further Fed easing, saying current conditions are not weak enough, said Dipen Shah, Head of PCG Research, Kotak Securities.
Back home, 17 stocks in the 30-share Sensex closed lower while 13 stocks logged gains. Major losers from the Sensex were Tata Steel (2.73 pc), Jindal Steel (2.3 pc), Hindalco (2 pc), ICICI Bank (1.8 pc), Reliance (1.55 pc), M&M (1.19 pc), Tata Power (1.1 pc), NTPC (1.09 pc) and Infosys (1.06 pc).
Gainers were led by Coal India (2.26 pc), followed by ONGC (1.95 pc), Cipla (0.88 pc) and Maruti Suzuki (0.88 pc).
The market breadth continued to rule negative as 1,634 shares finished with losses while 1,185 scrips ended higher.
Talking about Indian economy, Richard Iley, Chief Asia Economist, BNP Paribas said: "it is wrestling with GDP growth at a 9-year low of close and inflation close to 10 per cent. This year's deficient monsoon will keep the growth-inflation trade-off under pressure for a few quarters."
Among the sectoral indices today, the BSE-Realty fell by 2.54 per cent, followed by the BSE-Bankex (1.08 pc), the BSE-Power (0.80 pc), the BSE-CG (0.79 pc) and the BSE-Metal (0.57 pc).
The total turnover moved down to Rs 1,940.33 crore from Rs 1,950.72 crore on Thursday.
Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) continued their buying spree, showing the net investment of Rs 311.79 crore on Thursday in equities as per provisional data from stock exchanges.
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