Mumbai, Feb 4 Continued profit booking as well as subdued global cues due to high oil prices led India's key stock indices S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty50 to settle marginally in the red on Friday.
At the start of the day's trade, the two indices opened almost flat but rose in the initial minutes to make intra-day high. They fell soon after and made an intraday low post noon.Globally, Asian equity markets were mostly mixed, supported by an Amazon-led bounce in US Futures.
However, a rise in oil prices to a seven-year high kept traders on edge over prospects that interest rates will rise to curb global inflationary pressures.
Similarly, European stock indexes faltered on Friday, even after strong Amazon earnings, while a sell-off briefly pushed German 5-year bonds positive for the first time in four years after the European Central Bank gave a more hawkish commentary than expected.
On the domestic front, volumes on the NSE were lower than recent average. Amongst sectors, metals led the gainers whereas realty, banks and auto fell the most.
Consequently, Sensex settled at 58,644.82 points, down 0.24 per cent or 143.20 points, and Nifty at 17,516.30 points, down 0.25 per cent or 43.90 points.
"On daily charts, lack of buying enthusiasm amidst steady selling by FPIs resulted in Nifty ending in the negative," said Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research, HDFC Securities.
"However, the fact that Nifty is correcting slowly raises hope of resurrection in the upmove in Nifty shortly."
According to Siddhartha Khemka, Head - Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services: "Global cues were mixed with rising bond yields weighing on the sentiments following the 25 bps interest rate hike by BoE and ECB's hawkish stance."
"The ECB kept the interest rates unchanged, but declined to comment on previous guidance of no rate hike, thus leaving the door open to a 2022 hike."
In addition, Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services said: "The domestic market continued to ride yesterday's downtrend with most sectors barring FMCG and Metal facing sell-off."
"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 signalling a rate hike in the future. Wall Street remained highly volatile as a huge sell-off was seen in Meta (Facebook) post its earnings."
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