Sensex ends marginally lower, Nifty holds 8,400; TCS top laggard

The benchmark indices on Friday settled marginally lower after market heavyweight Tata Consultancy Services slumped on worries about its future following key management changes.

The S&P BSE Sensex ended at 27,238, down 9 points, while the broader Nifty50 closed at 8,400, down 7 points. 

In the broader market, the BSE Midcap (down 0.03%) and BSE Smallcap indices (up 0.03%) closed flat.

The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was negative. On the BSE, 1,493 shares declined and 1,236 shares rose. A total of 177 shares were unchanged.

"Market is turning cautious in spite of a good start to the result season. This, we believe, is largely due to the fact that India had a handsome pre-budget rally in the last two weeks. Additionally, global market will be watchful next week as Donald Trump will take oath and assume office. His economic agenda will be the key factor to influence the market," said Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services.

Sectors and stocks

Sectorally, BSE Information Technolog (down 1.9%) was the worst performer, led by losses in Moser Baer, TCS, Kellton Tech and Infosys.  

TCS fell 4% to its one-month low at Rs 2,249 as CEO Natarajan Chandrasekaran's departure to head holding company Tata Sons as chairman overshadowed the company's better-than-expected December-quarter results. The stock was the top Sensex loser.

Adding to the fall, Infosys shares declined on profit-taking after the company posted positive quarterly results, but narrowed its full-year revenue guidance range.

Infosys fell as much as 3.73% to its lowest since December 7, coming off a two-and-a-half-month high touched earlier in the session. The scrip settled 2.9% down to Rs 971.

Goa Carbon slumped 9.13% after the company reported net loss of Rs 1 crore in the December quarter compared with net loss of Rs 0.9 crore in the December quarter of last fiscal year. 

Among gainers, SpiceJet rallied 2.5% to Rs 65.5 as company is expected to to seal an order for at least 90 new 737 jets from Boeing.

Reliance Industries closed 0.6% higher at Rs 1090 ahead of its quarterly results on Monday.

Global markets 

European stocks edged higher with health care stocks recovering from remarks made earlier this week by US President-elect Donald Trump that pharmaceuticals were getting away with murder. 

Britain's blue-chip FTSE 100 index set another record high of 7,329.29 points and was last quoted 0.4% higher. The pan-European STOXX 600 was also up 0.5%.

Asian markets closed mixed. China's Shanghai Composite and Taiwan's TSEC shed 0.2% and 0.3%, respectively, while Japan's Nikkei and Hong Kong's Hang Seng indices ended 0.8%, and 0.5% higher.