Sensex sheds 237 pts dragged by HUL, RIL, Infosys; Nifty ends below 18,050

CLOSING BELL

Equity markets ended Friday's choppy trade with nominal cuts pulled down by losses in select heavyweights such as Reliance(1 per cent), HUL( 4 per cent), Asian Paints (3 per cent) and Infosys (1 per cent).  

The BSE Sensex closed 237 points lower at 60,622 after it touched an intra-day high of 61,001. The NSE Nifty reached the day's high of 18,145 before fizzling out gains and closing 80 points down at 18,028. 

The other top frontline drags included Bajaj twins, Nestle, L&T, Bharti Airtel, Maruti, Tech M, Sun Pharma, JSW Steel and HDFC Life, which lost 1-3 per cent. 

While Coal India, Power Grid, HDFC twins, ITC, ICICI Bank, SBI, Tata Motors, Axis Bank, and NTPC were among the handful of index gainers. 

Broader markets bled more than benchmarks with the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices falling up to 0.7 per cent. 

Within sectors, Nifty consumer durables, FMCG, metals, realty and pharma indices suffered the most losses ending around 1 per cent lower each, while bank and financial pockets held ground and logged fractional gains. 

Buzzing stocks: Read why HUL, PVR slumped 4 per cent each on Friday.

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