Market ends week on a high; banks-led gains help Nifty close above 10,800

Amongst sectoral indices, only information technology, oil and gas closed in the red as Reliance Industries and oil marketing companies were under pressure in Friday’s trading session.

But market breadth failed to turn in favour of advances as rally was limited to a few stocks than being broad-based. At the close, four stocks were in the green against five declining.

Major traction in pharma continued. For this month, the Nifty Pharma Index is up 14%.

Saurabh Mukherjea of Ambit expects pharma to benefit on account of weakening rupee.

For the week, the Nifty gained 0.15, the Sensex 0.3%, the Nifty Bank 1.4% and the Nifty Midcap Index down 1.1%.

Amongst index stocks, ICICI Bank, HDFC, BPCL, Bajaj Finserv and HDFC Bank were top gainers and UPCL, Hindalco, Coal India and HCL tech top losers.

In the Futures market, Put options of 10,700, 10,800 and 10,750 added 4-11 lakh shares in the open interest with premium slipping 58-63%.

Amongst Call options, 10,800 witnessed maximum interest with 10 lakhs shares being shed in the open interest and premium surging 92%.

The Nifty June Futures closed with a premium of 11 points against a discount of 4 points on Thursday.

On the global front, major Asian markets closed mixed.

Japan led losses in Asia with the benchmark Nikkei 225 slipping 0.8% to close at 22,517, but was off its intraday low.

Losses were seen across most sectors, with automaker stocks down 1.43 percent and among the day's worst-performing sectors.

Early declines in South Korea reversed, with the Kospi finishing up 0.8% at 2,357.

Over in Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 edged lower by 0.1% to close at 6,225 in choppy trade.

Heavily weighted financials rose, but those gains were offset by declines in most other sectors.

Telecommunications stocks fell as Telstra declined for the third straight day.

Greater China markets were in positive territory.

On the mainland, the Shanghai Composite rose 0.5% to close at 2,890. The smaller Shenzhen Composite advanced 1.21%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index, meanwhile, edged higher by 0.1%.