Stock indices post fourth week of gains despite retreating from new peaks

Mumbai: Indian stock indices hit yet another record high on Friday before retreating and ending in the red as investors booked profits after sharp recent gains. The Nifty ended down 44.35 points or 0.25% at 17,585.15 after hitting a high of 17,792.95. The Sensex touched a new all-time high of 59,737.32 before closing down 127 points.

Though indices ended down on Friday, they posted their fourth week of gains. Both the indices gained over 1% for the week.

"The market was slightly overbought and so there is room for it to pull back 200 points or so (Nifty) but it would be a one two-day correction and after that most probably the trend will continue higher," said Rohit Srivastava, founder, Indiacharts.com.


Siddhartha Khemka, head, retail research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services, expects the markets to be nervous in the coming week because of the upcoming US Federal Reserve meeting and other global issues.

“Weak global cues on account of worry over slower economic growth and rising Delta variant cases globally would keep market oscillating between greed and fear,” he said.

Over 130% up from March 2020 lows
Kotak Mahindra Bank, HDFC Bank, Bharti Airtel, Maruti Suzuki India and Nestle India ended up 1-5% and were the top gainers of the Sensex pack, while Tata Steel, State Bank of India, TCS, Hindustan Unilever, Reliance Industries, Sun Pharma and ICICI Bank were some of the biggest laggards, ending down 1-3.6%.

Indian stock indices are up over 130% from their pandemic lows hit in March 2020 on the back of accommodative monetary policy by global central banks, vaccination rollouts and an increase in the pace of jabs along with easing Covid-19 curbs.