Sensex, Nifty fall after eight days of rally

Mumbai, December 2

Equity benchmark indices ended lower on Friday, halting their eight-day rally, amid a weak trend in global markets and emergence of profit-taking.

The Sensex fell 415.69 points to settle at 62,868.50. During the day, it tanked 604.56 points to 62,679.63. The Nifty dipped 116.40 points to end at 18,696.10.

Among the Sensex pack, Mahindra & Mahindra, Hindustan Unilever, Maruti, Nestle, HDFC, Asian Paints, Bajaj Finance and Power Grid were among the major laggards.

Tata Steel, Dr Reddy’s, Tech Mahindra, IndusInd Bank and HCL Technologies were among the winners.

“The rally in the domestic market was halted by negative cues from global counterparts and broad-based profit-booking in large caps. The correction in the market was led by auto stocks as the sales data came in lower-than-expected due to weaker exports and sequential de-stocking,” Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.

In the past eight days, the BSE benchmark had jumped 2,139.35 points or 3.49%.