By Sethuraman N R
BENGALURU (Reuters) – Indian shares closed mostly unchanged on Friday, as gains in information technology and energy stocks were offset by weakness in banking and auto stocks, but benchmark indexes ended lower for a second consecutive week.
The blue-chip NSE Nifty 50 index ended 0.05% lower at 17,101, while the S&P BSE Sensex fell 0.1% to 57,200. For the week, the indexes fell nearly 3%.
The Nifty 50 index has fallen about 8% since hitting a record high in mid-October amid a surge in Omicron COVID-19 variant cases and fears over a rise in global interest rates.
“The continuous foreign institutional investor outflows is something that is keeping participants on the edge and weighing on the (market) sentiment,” said Ajit Mishra, Vice President- Research, Religare Broking Ltd.
“The earnings are very balanced in domestic market, with most of the companies performing well. But, with the U.S. Federal Reserve seeing rate hikes in March, the FII selling is intensifying in domestic market,” he said.
The Nifty IT index rose 1.2% after dropping over 14% in eight consecutive sessions of losses.
Shares of Bharti Airtel climbed as much as 6.6% to scale a two-month high after saying Alphabet Inc’s Google would invest up to $1 billion in the telecom operator.
NTPC Ltd was the top gainer in the Nifty 50 index, rising 3.8%, while Maruti Suzuki was the top drag, falling 3.1%.
Shares of Coforge Ltd, LIC HFL and Route Mobile surged 7.1%, 11% and 8% respectively, after reporting strong December-quarter earnings on Thursday.
Mahindra Logistics fell 11% after posting lower quarterly profit.
Meanwhile, Europe’s main bourses fell again on Friday as worries about a sudden stop to central bank stimulus and rising tensions between Western powers and Moscow continued to drive world stocks to one of their worst ever starts to a year. [MKTS/GLOB]
(Reporting by Nallur Sethuraman in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)
