By Rituraj Baruah,

Mumbai : The key Indian equity indices settled with marginal gains in the week ended Friday after largely volatile trade throughout the week.

Value buying, a fall in global crude oil prices and appreciation in rupee on Friday led to a nearly one per cent rise in both the BSE and NSE on the week’s last trading day, which eventually lifted the indices on a week-on-week basis.

The barometer 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) of the BSE rose by 76.57 points or 0.22 per cent to close at 34,924.87 points on a weekly basis.

The wider Nifty50 of the NSE closed the week’s trade at 10,605.15 points — up 8.75 points or 0.08 per cent — from its previous close.

“Markets ended the week with marginal gains after a sharp bounce back from the lows of 10,417 points (on Nifty) towards the end of the week. Buying by domestic institutions, stabilisation of rupee and crude prices helped the Nifty to make a sharp recovery. This week’s marginal gain came after the sharp fall seen last week,” said Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research at HDFC Securities.

Equity99’s Senior Research Analyst, Rahul Sharma said: “Volatility was high last week due to political developments in Karnataka. Also, weak global clues and high crude prices added to sentiments.”

“Markets last week ended flat, but (there was) extremely high volatility influenced by quarterly results, crude oil price movement and geopolitical news,” said Prateek Jain, Director of Hem Securities, adding that market observed a slump in the crude oil and dollar improved the frail macro indicators lighting a fire in the Nifty.

On the currency front, the rupee strengthened by 23 paise to close at 67.78 against the US dollar from its previous week’s close of 68.01 per greenback.

In terms of investments, provisional figures from the stock exchanges showed that foreign institutional investors sold scrips worth Rs 3,227.06 crore, while the domestic institutional investors purchased stocks worth Rs 4,364.93 crore during the week.

Figures from the National Securities Depository (NSDL) revealed that foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) divested equities worth Rs 2,988.86 crore, or $438.81 million, in the week ended May 25.

Sector-wise, PSU Banks, IT and pharmaceuticals gained the most, while realty, energy and FMCG lost the most, Jasani told IANS.

The top weekly Sensex gainers were: State Bank of India (up 11.62 per cent at Rs 267); Bharti Airtel (up 4.06 per cent at Rs 376.65); Infosys (up 3.81 per cent at Rs 1,228.80); Coal India (up 3.62 per cent at Rs 276.05); and ICICI Bank (up 3.53 per cent at Rs 296.50 per share).

The major losers were: ONGC (down 5.24 per cent at Rs 175.35); Tata Motors (DVR) (down 4.74 per cent at Rs 171.75); Tata Steel (down 4.11 per cent at Rs 567.20); ITC (down 3.62 per cent at Rs 271.95); and Tata Motors (down 3.62 per cent at Rs 294.20 per share).

(Rituraj Baruah can be contacted at rituraj.b@ians.in)

—IANS