Indian stock markets ended the week sharply lower on Friday, with the Sensex falling for a fourth straight session and snapping a two-week winning streak as a spike in crude oil prices weighed on sentiment.
The BSE Sensex declined 125.56 points, or 0.17 percent, to close at 73,123.83. The Nifty 50 fell 87.65 points, or 0.39 percent, to settle at 22,600. For the week, the Sensex lost 2.15 percent, about 1,600 points, while the Nifty shed 2.36 percent. Markets were closed on Tuesday for the Dussehra holiday, making it a truncated trading week.
Sensex closes week with fourth straight loss
Friday’s decline capped a difficult week for the Sensex, which had risen for two consecutive weeks before the slide began. Four straight sessions of losses erased a large part of the gains built up during that run, and the weekly fall was the first for the benchmark in three weeks.
The Sensex has now given back much of what it gained during its two-week winning run, with the 2.15 percent weekly fall wiping about 1,600 points off the index in a holiday-shortened week. The Dussehra holiday on Tuesday meant the week’s losses were spread across just four trading sessions.
Among Nifty 50 stocks, Eternal was the top gainer with a 4.25 percent rise, followed by Apollo Hospitals at 1.65 percent, ONGC at 1.11 percent, Asian Paints at 0.97 percent and TCS at 0.92 percent. Shriram Finance was the biggest loser, dropping 3.98 percent.
The list of gainers was short. With only a handful of stocks in the green through the week, the benchmark had little to cushion the steady selling.
Brent crude near $114 unsettles investors
Brent crude climbed to around $114 a barrel during the week amid tensions in West Asia after Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia. Costlier crude is a worry for Indian equities because it lifts fuel prices and the import bill, and it feeds into inflation at a time when investors are watching interest rates closely.
The weakness was broad-based. Fifteen of the 16 major sectoral indices ended the week with losses, a sign that the selling spread across industries rather than staying confined to a few heavyweight stocks.
Smallcaps and Swiggy take the worst of it
The pain was sharper beyond the headline index. The Nifty Smallcap 100 fell 7.3 percent and the Nifty Midcap 100 lost 5.6 percent for the week, their worst weekly performances in 20 months. Smaller stocks tend to fall harder when risk appetite fades, and this week was no exception.
Swiggy was the standout loser among individual names. The food delivery company’s shares plunged 16.75 percent to Rs 176 on Friday after touching a fresh 52-week low of Rs 174.95. The slide came after its September-quarter results, in which the net loss narrowed 15.6 percent from a year earlier to Rs 922 crore but widened from Rs 791 crore in the June quarter.
The adjusted EBITDA loss at Instamart, the company’s quick-commerce arm, widened to around Rs 895 crore. The numbers showed losses shrinking from last year but growing from the previous quarter, and the stock sank to its lowest level in a year.
What dragged the Sensex lower this week
Reuters reported that sentiment was also hurt by liquidity drained from the market by a $3.2 billion initial public offering from Mukesh Ambani’s Jio Platforms. Large share sales pull money out of existing stocks as investors keep cash ready for the new offering.
HDFC Bank added to the pressure. The stock fell 5 percent for the week after the lender missed profit estimates, and the decline in such a heavyweight stock weighed on the wider market.
First weekly loss after two weeks of gains
Friday’s close confirmed the first weekly decline for the benchmarks after two straight weeks of gains. The Sensex ended the week 2.15 percent lower, with smallcaps and midcaps faring worse than the headline index. The four-session losing run leaves the Sensex with ground to recover in the sessions ahead.