Mumbai, May 17 (IANS) A benchmark index of the Indian equities markets Friday closed in marginally positive territory, with scrips of capital goods, bank, power, realty and public sector undertakings (PSUs) gaining.
There was, however, heavy selling in consumer durables, healthcare, metal, oil and gas, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) stocks.
The 30-scrip sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened in the red at 20,267.60 points, ended at 20,286.12 points, up 38.79 points or 0.19 percent from its previous day close at 20,247.33 points.
The Sensex touched a high of 20,328.19 points and low of 20,155.01 points in the intra-day trade.
The wider 50-scrip S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) closed the day's trade flat, 0.28 percent or 17.40 points down at 6,187.30 points.
The BSE consumer durables index was down 54.64 points, healthcare index was down 35.91 points, metal index was down 28.85 points, oil and gas index was down 22.07 points followed by FMCG index down 3.01 points.
However, the capital goods index was up 298.83 points, followed by bank index, up 85.21 points, power index, up 55.14 points, realty index, up 40.28 points, and PSU index, up 33.60 percent.
BHEL rose 4.00 percent at Rs.201.35. And so did NTPC, up 2.24 percent at Rs.159.80; ICICI Bank, up 1.92 percent at Rs.1,228.60; Larsen and Toubro (L&T), up 1.84 percent at Rs.2,115.65; and Bajaj Auto, up 1.44 percent at Rs.1,833.80.
Among the major Sensex losers were companies like Bharti Airtel that dropped 1.96 percent to Rs.315.65; DrReddys Lab, down 1.80 percent to Rs.2,077.65; Sterlite Inds, down 1.32 percent to Rs.97.15; Maruti Suzuki, down 1.00 percent to Rs.1,709.40; and Wipro, down 0.94 percent to Rs.344.
Among other Asian markets, Japan's Nikkei closed 0.67 percent up, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng went up by 0.17 percent. China's Shanghai Composite Index also closed higher, by 1.38 percent.
In the European markets, Britain's FTSE 100 was trading 0.30 percent up and so was the German DAX, up 0.06 percent. The French CAC 40, too, was ruling 0.29 percent up.
