Benchmark stock market indices ended Friday's trading session on a weak note as banking and financial stocks declined.
The S&P BSE Sensex was down 53.07 points, closing at 79,996.60, while the NSE Nifty50 settled 26 points higher at 24,328.15.
Despite the dip in major indices, most broader market indices ended in positive territory as volatility declined. Among sectoral indices, Nifty Financial Services and Nifty Bank were the top losers, primarily due to a significant 4.5% drop in HDFC Bank shares.
Conversely, a surge in Oil & Gas stocks, led by ONGC and Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), helped markets recover some of the losses incurred earlier in the trading session.
The top five gainers on the Nifty50 were ONGC, Reliance, SBI, Britannia, and Cipla. On the other hand, the biggest drags were HDFC Bank, Titan, LTIM, Tata Steel, and IndusInd Bank.
Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services, commented, "The domestic market traded with a mixed bias, with the heavyweight banking sector acting as a laggard. Adding to the worry are the top lending banks, which recorded a sequential decline in deposit growth in the June quarter."
"While Midcap and Small Cap outperformed, with the respective BSE indices hitting an all-time high. Globally, investors now await the US non-farm payroll data to be released later today to gauge the trajectory of the US Fed's potential rate cuts," he said.
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