Indian shares settled lower on Friday as investors booked profits, while losses in energy stocks also weighed. However, both indexes gained for the fifth consecutive week. The benchmark BSE index closed down 0.58 percent at 38,164.61. It ended the week with a gain of 0.37 percent. The broader NSE index slipped 0.56 percent to 11,456.90, while it rose 0.26 percent for the week.
Reliance Industries Ltd and HDFC Bank Ltd dragged the index, closing the day 2.45 percent and 0.99 percent lower, respectively.
"Indian equities have posted one of the sharpest gains recently, and today is a case of the markets taking a breather, especially with it being a holiday-shortened week," said Sunil Sharma, chief investment officer, Sanctum Wealth Management.
"Markets have discounted a fair amount of positives in the short term, and any further rally is likely to be driven by fundamentals and positive news flows."
Indian markets witnessed a pre-election rally in the last few sessions, fuelled by optimism that the current coalition government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi would return to power.
India's financial markets were shut on Thursday for a public holiday.
Shares of Larsen & Toubro Ltd rose as much 3.2 percent, their highest since Jan. 3, while NTPC Ltd added as much as 3.3 percent.
Shares of low-cost carrier SpiceJet Ltd jumped as much as 14.2 percent on upbeat February passenger data. Energy stocks traded lower, with the Nifty Energy index losing as much as 0.8 percent.
Comments
Comments are closed.