Sensex Closes In Positive Territory; Capital Goods Gain

MUMBAI: A benchmark index of Indian equities markets closed Friday's trade 35 points up, recouping early losses.

Healthy buying support was observed in capital goods, automobile and healthcare stocks. However, heavy selling pressure was seen in scrips of banks, information technology (IT) and technology, entertainment and media (TECk) companies.

The 30-scrip S&P Sensitive Index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 21,648.05 points, closed at 21,809.80 points, up 35.19 points or 0.16 percent from the previous day's close at 21,774.61 points.

The Sensex touched a high of 21,853.32 points and a low of 21,573.48 points during the intra-day trade.

The wider 50-scrip Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) closed trade at 11.10 points or 0.17 percent down at 6,504.20 points.

"Markets reversed the trend and ended with marginal gains on Friday. For the week, benchmark indices closed largely unchanged. While banks, capital goods, realty etc. did well, IT and metals were the under-performers," said Dipen Shah, head, private client group research, Kotak Securities.

"Going ahead, the referendum in Ukraine will be the immediate event to watch out for. Any escalation in tensions may impact global markets. Beyond that, the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) policy meeting will be watched for any cues on future interest rate movements," he said.

The S&P BSE Bank index dropped by 93.70 points, followed by IT index, which closed the day's trade 35.72 points down and TECk index which fell 27.51 points.

However, the S&P BSE capital goods index gained 210.36 points, automobile index added 119.23 points and healthcare index went up by 81.74 points.

The major Sensex gainers were: BHEL, up 2.54 percent at Rs.187.55; Larsen and Toubro (L&T), up 2.46 percent at Rs.1,255.50; Dr Reddy's Lab, up 1.53 percent at Rs.2,775.90; Cipla, up 1.47 percent at Rs.385.85; and Tata Steel, up 1.47 percent at Rs.341.75.

The losers were: Wipro, down 2.90 percent at Rs.547.05; Bharti Airtel, down 1.93 percent at Rs.295.10; Axis Bank, down 1.80 percent at Rs.1,356; HDFC Bank, down 1.42 percent at Rs.731.70; and HDFC, down 1.41 percent at Rs.854.