Nifty ends rangebound session with modest losses

The benchmark Nifty closed with modest losses on the back of weak global cues and profit booking on Friday, after witnessing 125 points rally in previous two days. But more importantly it held 5500 level for the second consecutive day and traded in a tight range of 5520-5540 today.

Abhijeet Chakraborty of Fortune Finance feels sees the Nifty trading in the 5,400-5,600 range in the immediate term.

Asian markets like Shanghai and Nikkei slipped 1.7-2%. Hang Seng, Straits Times and Kospi declined 0.2-0.4%. European markets were also trading 0.6-0.8% lower due to weak US cues, at the time of closing of Indian equities. Even Dow Jones and Nasdaq futures fell 0.5% each. The US markets ended 1.4-1.7% lower on Thursday post poor economic data.

Shares of technology, FMCG, metal, cement, telecom and power companies' along with ICICI Bank, SBI, ONGC, Tata Motors, HDFC, BHEL and Maruti witnessed selling pressure, which weighed on the markets.

However, buying heavyweights like Reliance Industries and L&T along with realty and pharma companies' shares capped the losses to major extent. BPCL, IDFC, JSPL, Siemens, Hero Honda and Reliance Infrastructure were other gainers. 

The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 18,401.82, down 53.12 points and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 9.55 points to 5,530.65. The Nifty August futures ended at 9 points discount. For the week, both benchmarks rallied over 1%.