Stock Market Snaps 8-Day Winning Run. Sensex Slips 415 Points, Nifty Settles At 18,696 On Weak Cues

Stock update: Mahindra & Mahindra, Hindustan Unilever, Maruti, Nestle, HDFC, Asian Paints, Bajaj Finance, and Power Grid were among the major losers on the S&P Sensex platform

The two equity benchmarks, Sensex and Nifty, ended lower on Friday, halting their eight-day rally, amid a weak trend in global markets and ahead of the weekend and upcoming RBI policy next week.

The BSE Sensex declined 416 points (0.66 per cent) to settle at 62,868. During the day, it tanked 605 points (0.95 per cent) to 62,680. The broader NSE Nifty dipped 116 points (0.62 per cent) to end at 18,696. In the past eight days, the BSE benchmark had jumped 2,139 points

On the 30-share Sensex platform, Mahindra & Mahindra, Hindustan Unilever, Maruti, Nestle, HDFC, Asian Paints, Bajaj Finance, and Power Grid were among the major losers. Tata Steel, Dr Reddy's, Tech Mahindra, IndusInd Bank, and HCL Technologies were among the winners.

The broader market, however, bucked the trend and ended in the green, with the BSE Midcap gauge settling 0.80 per cent higher and Smallcap index climbed 0.70 per cent.

Among sectoral indices, power fell 1.23 per cent, auto declined 1.12 per cent, utilities (1.10 per cent), teck (0.52 per cent), consumer durables (0.46 per cent), IT (0.41 per cent) and bankex (0.32 per cent). Commodities, industrials, capital goods, telecommunication and metal were among the winners.

In the previous session, the BSE Sensex had climbed 185 points (0.29 per cent) to end at 63,284, its fresh record closing high. The Nifty advanced 54 points (0.29 per cent) to end at 18,812, its new record closing high.

"The rally in the domestic market was halted by negative cues from global counterparts and broad-based profit-booking in large caps. The correction in the market was led by auto stocks as the sales data came in lower-than-expected due to weaker exports and sequential de-stocking," Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.

"Markets witnessed profit-taking and lost over half a per cent, taking a breather after the recent surge," said Ajit Mishra, VP - Technical Research, Religare Broking Ltd.

Elsewhere in Asia, markets in Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai, and Hong Kong ended in the negative territory.

Equity exchanges in Europe were trading mostly lower in the afternoon trade. Wall Street had ended lower on Thursday.

International oil benchmark Brent crude was trading 0.13 per cent lower at $86.77 per barrel.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded shares worth Rs 1,565.93 crore on Thursday, as per exchange data.