Sensex retreats for third day to pare weekly advance

Three shares fell for every two that climbed on the S&P BSE Sensex, which changed direction at least seven times

Stocks trimmed the biggest weekly gain in almost a month before a US jobs report as declines in software exporters and telecom companies offset increases in energy shares.

Three shares fell for every two that climbed on the S&P BSE Sensex, which changed direction at least seven times. The gauge is up 0.5 per cent for the week, rebounding from a 2.8 per cent drop in the previous five days, which was the steepest since February following India's attacks on militants in Pakistan. Foreign investors kept faith in the nation's equities, buying $191 million this week, adding to the $1.4 billion they purchased in September.

"The markets will trade in a range in the near term as there as too many uncertainties such as the Fed rates, US presidential elections and the corporate earnings season," R K Gupta, managing director at Taurus Asset Management Co, said by phone from New Delhi. "At the same time, the liquidity is very strong, thus every fall is being bought aggressively."

Stocks were buoyed earlier this week by the central bank's move to ease borrowing costs. The six-member Monetary Policy Committee led by newly-appointed Reserve Bank of India Governor Urjit Patel took the country's first collective interest-rate decision Tuesday, moving to cut the benchmark repurchase rate to a more than five-year low of 6.25 per cent. That was after consumer-price inflation slowed to a five-month low in August.

Bloomberg