Freak trade, profit booking hit mkt, Nifty ends 42 points down

The BSE Sensex erased all previous day's gains on Friday due to profit booking while the NSE Nifty closed tad below the 5300 level amid a lacklustre trade. Investors opted for profit taking ahead of the weekend as they are cautious ahead of Reliance Industries' Q4 earnings, which will be announced today after market hours.

Trading mistake hammered the NSE benchmark which touched an intraday low of 5245, before closing down 41.55 points or 0.78% at 5,290.85.

The BSE benchmark shed more than 250 points to hit an intraday low of 17,231.34, before closing the session at 17,373.84, down 129.87 points or 0.74%. The Index had rallied more than 400 points in previous four sessions.

Trading mistake 'freak trade' that happened at institutional investors' desk around 2:30 pm pulled down market. CNBC-TV18 reported that the freak trade was on Infosys and Nifty futures. Infosys April futures hit a low of Rs 1950 and Nifty April futures touched a low of 5000, which might have triggered stoploss.

According to Siddharth Bhamre (F&O Analyst) of Angel Broking, there is some large institution who wanted to sell Nifty as well as Infosys, but instead of putting an order with price, I think that order by mistake has gone without price and it is more to do with a dealing error rather than anything else.

Software services provider Infosys fell 1.7% to touch an intraday low of Rs 2,365, before closing flat at 2,406.25. Tata Consultancy Services, top IT exporter dropped 1.16% while Wipro gained 0.75%.