Sensex logs 6th week of gain, ends day with 85 pts loss

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The Sensex recovered more than half of its losses in the last hour of trade but closed 109 points down on Friday. The downtrend in global markets had negatively impacted sentiments although it was quite the opposite in the morning. Profit booking too weighed heavy on Nifty, which rallied quite sharply to reach the 5400 mark. Overall, bears could not take full charge of the street, which suggests that traders still look optimistic about the market in near term.

Rahul Mohindar of viratechindia.com too feels that today's move is not really a savage down move. "We still have been moving in a range of 5,320-5,400-5,420. These kind of intraday corrections are quite expected. If 5,300 breaks, we might see the odd 100-120 point fall coming. But over the next one or two months 5,600 is on the cards" he reasoned.

For the week, the market gained 1%. It continued its one way move for the sixth consecutive week, gaining 15% on the Sensex and over 16% on the Nifty in last six weeks. Foreign institutional investors bought more than Rs 19,000 crore worth of equity shares in the same period.

Today, all global markets were down on concerns about Greece's commitment to debt restructuring even after the much awaited debt deal approved yesterday. European markets like CAC, DAX and FTSE fell 0.3-0.9%. The Dow Jones futures too declined 60 points. Asian markets barring Shanghai closed 0.6-1% lower.

Back home, however, significant slowdown of December industrial output growth at 1.8% as against 5.9% month-on-month did not see much reaction in the market. The CNBC-TV18 poll had estimated the IIP number at 3.45%.

Shares of Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, Infosys, HDFC Bank and HUL dropped around 1%. M&M, Maruti and Hero Motocorp were also down 1-2%.

Shares of BHEL, SBI, L&T, Sterlite and HDFC fell 0.3-0.6%. Hindalco tumbled 3.6% as it reported lower than expected third quarter profit yesterday and its Canada-based subsidiary Novelis posted a loss of USD 12 million in Q3.

However, Tata Steel rallied over 5% even after it posted a loss of Rs 687 crore - for the first time in more than two years - in October-December quarter of FY12. Short covering may have pushed the stock higher.

Among others, Bajaj Auto rose 2%. TCS, ITC and Wipro ended with moderate gains.

Even market breadth was almost neutral - about 1433 shares advanced while 1510 shares declined on the BSE. Traded turnover on both exchanges was more than Rs 1.75 lakh crore.