Sensex, Nifty off all-time highs; fall for 2nd week

 Stocks: The benchmark BSE S&P Sensex came off its all-time intra-day high of 22,040.72 logged on Tuesday, and closed down for the second week in a row in a range-bound trade during the extended week.

The index lost over 54 points to end at 21,755.32 on Saturday.

The BSE and NSE were closed on March 17 on account of "Holi". Both the exchanges conducted a special live trading session today to enable the NSE to test its software. The trading took place from 11.15 am to 12.45 pm.

FMCG, metal, consumer durable and pharma counters were in keen demand this week, while shares from refinery, capital goods and realty suffered losses.

IT shares were also out of favour as outsourcing companies fell on concerns about their revenue outlooks.

The market took a hit on worries that the US interest rates would rise sooner than expected and dent the appeal of higher-yielding emerging markets.

The BSE 30-share barometer resumed better and was trapped in a narrow breadth of over 335 points before settling at 21,775.32, a fall of 54.48 points, or 0.25 per cent. Last week, the index slipped 109.99 points, or 0.50 per cent.

It scaled a new lifetime high of 22,040.72, breaching the previous historic high of 22,023.98 logged on March 10.

The NSE 50-issue CNX Nifty declined by 9.30 points, or 0.14 per cent to end at 6,494.90. Like Sensex, Nifty too hit a new lifetime high of 6,574.95 during the week.

Jignesh Chaudhary, Head of Research, Veracity Broking Services, said: "Though the indices closed in the red, they scaled new records, taking cues from the better-than-expected data from the US and also the positive comments from Goldman Sachs that elections in India may fuel further gains in stocks."