The Sensex and Nifty erased early losses and ended higher on Friday as some consumer goods firms expected to benefit from the launch of a unified goods and services tax gained, offsetting declines in sectors such as autos that would be hit.

But the indexes still posted their first monthly loss this year as a record-setting rally cooled.

The broader NSE index closed up 16.8 points or 0.18 per cent at 9,520.90, but lost 1.04 percent for the month. It declined 0.56 per cent this week, its third consecutive weekly loss.

The benchmark BSE index ended 64.09 points or 0.21 per cent higher at 30,921.61 but posted a weekly loss of 0.70 per cent and a monthly loss of 0.72 per cent.

Among BSE sectoral indices, FMCG index was the star-performer and was up 2.24 per cent, followed by consumer durables 2.07 per cent, healthcare 1.47 per cent and power 0.56 per cent. On the other hand, realty index was down 0.51 per cent, auto 0.32 per cent, infrastructure 0.23 per cent and oil & gas 0.08 per cent.

Top five Sensex gainers were ITC (+4.00%), Sun Pharma (+2.97%), Tata Steel (+1.8%), Cipla (+1.76%) and Dr Reddy's (+1.59%), while the major losers were Hero MotoCorp (-1.25%), ICICI Bank (-1.23%), HDFC (-0.96%), Reliance (-0.91%) and Bharti Airtel (-0.9%).

Meanwhile, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth Rs 1,140.77 crore yesterday, as per provisional data.

Domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought shares worth Rs 600.23 crore yesterday

Asian shares

Asian shares were hit the dismal performance of the US and European markets. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.8 per cent, set to end the month up 1.7 per cent after hitting a two-year high on Thursday. It is up 5.3 per cent for the quarter and has risen 18.3 per cent this year.

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