Mumbai: The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex continued its downward march for the fourth straight week, tumbling 189 points to end at two-month low of 26,108.53 after plunging below the 26,000-level during the truncated week under review on global growth worries and capital outflows.
The BSE and the NSE were closed on October 15, 2014 on account of assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana.
The Sensex resumed slightly lower at 26,275.07 but tried to recover to log a high of 26,550.79 on better-than-expected Chinese trade data and fall in global crude oil prices to near 4-year low that will help India to contain current account and fiscal deficit.
However, heavy sell-off across the board on Thursday due to concerns over the global growth worries pulled the world stock markets down.
Besides, depreciation in rupee to over 7-month low at 61.93 against the US dollar on risk-aversion, weighed negatively on the bourses.
As a result, it dropped below 26,000-mark after two months to a low of 25,910.77 before recovering some ground following smart rise in banking shares on the last day of the week to settle at 26,108.53, still exhibiting a fall of 188.85 points, or 0.72 percent.
It also got support at the fag-end on hopes that the BJP will be in a strong position in state election results in Maharashtra and Haryana which would give a much-needed boost to economic reforms.
The Sensex has lost 981.89 points, or 3.62 percent, in straight four weeks.
The broad-based 50-issue CNX Nifty of the NSE also dipped by 80.25 points, or 1.02 percent, to end at 7,779.70.
In last four weeks, it has stumbled by 341.75 points or 4.21 percent.
Shares of realty giant DLF crashed by 27.34 percent in the week after Sebi imposed a three-year ban on the company and six top executives from securities markets and as a result the realty index was the top loser from the sectoral indices.
IT shares also suffered heavily as the rupee plunged to over seven-month low as well as country's largest software services exporter, TCS, announced below-market-expectations second quarter results.
Selling was so strong that 11 out of 12 sectoral indices finished in the red between 10.20 percent and 0.59 percent with realty, IT, tech, consumer durable, oil & gas and auto segments taking the lead in the downslide while only banks ended with smart gains on fag-end buying.
Subdued index of domestic industrial production (IIP) growth in August at 0.4 percent also weighed negatively on the market.
Meanwhile, Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) sold shares worth net Rs 3,748.82 crore during the week as per the SEBI's record, including the provisional figure of October 17.
Retail inflation dropped to 6.46 percent in September on falling prices of fruits and vegetables, the lowest since India started computing Consumer Price Index (CPI) in January 2012. The September wholesale price inflation also fell to five year low of 2.38 percent.
"Growth fears and disappointing US economic data has sent shares falling across Europe. Indian markets are afraid about the withdrawal of stimulus by US Fed," said Rakesh Goyal, Senior VP, Bonanza Portfolio.
Jignesh Chaudhary, Head Of Research, Veracity Broking Services said, "The Indian equity markets observed both the trends in the trading week. The markets will remain closed for two trading days in the coming week due to festivals.
"There is one more thing from which markets can take huge cues that is the result of two states assembly elections in which according to exit polls BJP is strong amongst all and would form government in the states of Haryana and Maharashtra which would be taken as positive news for the reforms."
He added: "There are earnings of some big bluechips scheduled in the coming week such as HDFC, Wipro and M&M which would also affect the markets. The trading technicals are suggesting corrections in the equity markets."
Overall, 16 scrips of the 30-share Sensex finished weak while others settled higher.
Major losers were TCS (8.74 percent), Hindalco (6.99 percent), SSLT (6.81 percent), M&M (4.89 percent), Tata Motors (3.37 percent), Wipro (3.21 percent), Sun Pharma (2.56 percent), RIL (2.31 percent), ONGC (1.79 percent) and Dr Reddy's Lab (2.52 percent) while Axis Bank rose by 5.99 percent, Coal India (5.08 percent), Tata Power (3.39 percent), ICICI Bank (3.12 percent), SBI (2.90 percent), BHEL (2.58 percent), HDFC Bank (2.12 percent), Hero MotoCorp (1.23 percent) and Bharti Airtel (1.02 percent).
Among the S&P BSE sectoral indices, Realty dropped by 10.20 percent, IT (5.15 percent), Teck (3.94 percent), CD (3.22 percent), Oil & Gas (1.97 percent), Auto (1.90 percent) and HC (1.72 percent) while Bankex firmed up by 3.09 percent.
Second-line shares also attracted heavy profit-booking from retail investors and underperformed the Sensex as the BSE-Smallcap and the BSE-Midcap indices closed down by 2.80 percent and 1.82 percent, respectively.
The total turnover at the BSE and the NSE improved further to Rs 11,983.54 crore and Rs 63,548.58 crore from Rs 11,458.36 crore and Rs 60,172.62 crore, respectively, during the last week.
