Sensex barely holds 34,000 at close, down 287 points, Nifty tests 10,450

The S&P BSE Sensex and Nifty50 ended lower on Friday as gains in IT stocks were offset by losses in banking stocks, with Punjab National Bank plummeting further in a sell-off triggered by a Rs 11,500 fraud reported by the state-run lender earlier this week.

The 30-share Sensex settled at 34,010, down 287 points, while the broader Nifty50 ended at 10,452, down 93 points.

In the broader market, the BSE Midcap and the BSE Smallcap indices underperformed to lose over 1 per cent each. 

Market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, turned sharply negative. On the BSE, 2,095 stocks declined, 709 stocks rose, while 114 stocks remained unchanged. 

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All the sectors ended in red. Nifty PSU Bank (down 2.5 per cent) shed the most, followed by Nifty Auto (down 1.7 per cent) and Nifty Metal (down 1.5 per cent). 

Among individual stocks, Eicher Motors (down 3.3 per cent), Indiabulls Housing Finance (down 3.3 per cent) and Tech Mahindra (down 3.2 per cent) were the top losers on Nifty.

Shares of Punjab National Bank declined for a third straight session and fell as much as 5.7 per cent in intraday trade on concerns over the potential liability from the scam.The stock recovered slightly to settle the day 2 per cent lower at Rs 125.65 on the BSE. 

Globally, world shares were set to post their best week of gains in six years on Friday after two consecutive weeks spent in the red, shrugging off a rise in global borrowing costs while the dollar hit its lowest level since 2014.

The MSCI world index of stocks, which tracks shares in 47 countries, was up 0.4 percent after European bourses opened. After suffering its biggest weekly drop since August 2015 last week, this week’s recovery puts the index on track for its best weekly showing since early December 2011.

The index has now reclaimed more than half of the 10.7 per cent plunge from a record intraday high on Jan. 29 to a four-month intraday low a week ago.

Meanwhile, Global index provider MSCI earlier in the day asked the country’s main stock exchanges to reconsider their anti-competitive measures which restrict the accessibility of the Indian equity market to foreign exchanges.