Closing Bell: Market ends the week lower, Nifty settles above 16500

Domestic equity bourses Sensex and Nifty ended a volatile session in the red today, as the lead in IT and oil & gas stocks were neutralised by losses in financial and auto names.

Indian equity market finished lower as losses in automobile and consumer shares offset gains in technology and index heavyweight Reliance Industries (RIL). The headline indices dived into the negative zone during the last 30 minutes as profit-booking emerged, erasing all of their early gains. The equity market had a good run yesterday, snapping a two-day losing run. Overnight, indices on Wall Street had also closed in the green. Owing to these developments, both benchmarks ended moderately lower amid volatility.

At the closing bell on June 3, the BSE Sensex fell more than 600 points from the day's high to close with 49 points loss at 55,769.23, and the Nifty lost 44 points to 16,584. In today's trade, Nifty Midcap 100 and Smallcap 100 index plummeted by 1.6% and 0.86%, respectively. On the National Stock Exchange, around two shares declined for every share rising on the NSE.

Top Nifty losers of the day were UltraTech Cement, Maruti Suzuki, NTPC, Bajaj Finserv, IndusInd Bank, and Axis Bank, while index heavyweight Reliance Industries extended gains, along with Infosys, L&T, HCL Technologies and Sun Pharma who were the lead gainers. In the top drags, Grasim Industries was the top Nifty loser as the scrip lost 6.53% to Rs 1,339. On weekly basis, except pharma, all sectoral indices rise this week, with IT and PSU the top gaining sectors.

In other developments, global investors now await the key jobs data from the US which is due later in the day.