Sensex down 205 points this week

Despite hectic short-coverings on the last day of the week ahead of the expiry of May contract coupled with strong results from Larsen and Toubro, the benchmark Sensex fell by 205 points to finish at 18,326.09.

Sustained selling by foreign funds and fears of high interest rates which may affect corporate profitability mainly affected the market sentiment.

Steep hike in petrol prices and fears of rise in diesel prices next week are expected to stoke up the inflation further which weighed on the market sentiment, resulting in the benchmark Sensex fell to an 8-week low of 18,020.79.

Higher headline inflation, although it softened slightly in April, and sluggish global trend too kept the market under pressure.

Gloomy earnings by the banking major State Bank of India also led to the fall in the value of share prices.

The country’s largest lender SBI’s net profit tumbled to Rs 20.88 crore for the Q4 ended March 11, 2011 against Rs 1,866.60 crore in the same quarter last fiscal due to higher provisioning for bad loans and operating expenses.

Sensex recovered by 184 points on the last day of the week following strong results from Larsen & Toubro.

It resumed lower at 18,492.68 and dropped further to 18,020.79 before settling the week at 18,326.09, showing at net loss of 205.19 points or 1.11 per cent from its last week-end level.

The NSE 50-share Nifty also dropped by 58.40 points or 1.05 per cent to end at 5,486.35.

Heavy sell-off from foreign institutional investors (FIIs) to the tune of Rs 7,612.70 crore during the current month till May 19 also affected the market sentiment.

Share of Larsen and Toubro (L&T) today rose 8.05 per cent as company reported a 17.25 per cent growth in standalone net profit at Rs 1,686.21 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2011.

Giving its outlook for the current year, the company said completion of several expansion projects is underway and it will strengthen the company’s position of prominence in various business verticals.

Food inflation in the country slipped further to 7.47 per cent for the week ended May 7, on the back of cheaper pulses, vegetables and wheat.

Among the major indices, the BSE0PSU fell by 4.74 per cent followed by the BSE-Oil & Gas (4.62 per cent), the BSE-Realty (4.18 per cent), the Bankex (3.43 per cent) and the BSE-Metal (1.84 per cent). However, the BSE-Capital Goods shot up by 3.99 per cent and the BSE-Consumer Durables gained 1.04 per cent.

Small-cap and Mid-cap indices also finished lower by 2.19 per cent and 2.12 per cent, respectively.