Stock market closing: Nifty, Sensex end 0.25% lower; Realty, PSU Bank and auto stocks drag

Extending the losses to second day, the Indian markets ended last trading day of the week in the red amid volatility and pressure from Realty, PSU Bank and auto sectors on Friday. 

Benchmarks Nifty50 and the S&P BSE Sensex corrected by over 0.25% and 0.24 per cent respectively. The broader Nifty closed just above 17,500, while the Sensex shed over 140 points in the closing. Headline indices settled at 17,516.30 and 58,644.82 .  

Auto, banking and financial services stocks were top losers as almost all sectors, barring mteal and FMCG, were seen trading under pressure in a volatile market on Friday.  

Hero MotoCorp, NTPC, Mahindra & Mahindra, State Bank, HDFC Life, Kotak Bank, Bajaj Finserv, Wipro, Reliance and HDFC Ltd were top losers.  

Hindalco, Sun Pharma, ONGC, JSW Steel, Tata Steel, Divis Laboratories, Asian Paints, HCL Tech, HDFC Bank and Bajaj Finance were among gainers on Friday.  

In the broader market midcap and small cap indices corrected nearly 1 per cent, while stocks from real estate, PSU Banks and auto sectors were seen under maximum pressure.  

The domestic market continued to ride yesterday’s downtrend with most sectors barring FMCG and Metal facing sell-off, said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services. 

"Western markets also lacked strength as the Bank of England imposed a back-to-back rate hike in yesterday’s policy meeting, while the dovish ECB acknowledged the risk of rising inflation signaling a rate hike in the future. Wall Street remained highly volatile as a huge sell-off was seen in Meta (Facebook) post its earnings," said Nair. 

"Nifty remained volatile throughout the day with a bearish tone. The consolidation may continue in the short term as long as Nifty remains with the bands of 17400 and 17800. Any directional breakout in the near term may induce further significant move in the market," said Rupak De, Senior Technical Analyst at LKP Securities.