Bourses end the week on promising note

The trading for the week started on a subdued note on persisting concerns over inflation and high interest rates as well as weak global cues on deepening euro-zone debt crisis.
Analysts said investors sold across-the-board in the early part of the week which was attributable to the expiry of the derivative contracts for May on Thursday.

However, short covering on Thursday and follow-up buying on the next day helped Sensex to recover major part of its early losses.

The Sensex closed the week at 18,266.10, a fall of 59.99 points or 0.33 per cent over the previous week's close. Intra-week, it dipped to a three-month low of 17,786.13.

The National Stock Exchange, the broader NSE 50-share Nifty eased by 10.25 points, or 0.19 per cent to end the week at 5,476.10. Stock markets have been under pressure most of this year, about 11 per cent down so far, due to high inflation, soaring oil prices, rising interest rates and below-expected fourth quarter earnings by key corporates.

"Indian markets got trapped in the worldwide selling of risky assets and the general flight-to-safety trend. The uptick in the Indian market in the last two days can be termed as more of a technical recovery after the recent weakness. It is a minor pullback and not a trend reversal, as the fundamentals are still weighed down by high inflation and rising interest rates," said IIFL Head of Research (India Private Clients) Amar Ambani.

However, the market shrugged off the rise in food inflation which rose to 8.55 per cent for week ended May 14 from 7.47 per cent in the preceding week.

Among sectoral indices, BSE-Power went down by 2.22 per cent followed by BSE-IT (1.86 per cent), BSE-CG (1.75 per cent) and BSE-Auto (1.45 per cent).