Indian equity benchmarks finished the week nearly three percent higher, their third weekly gain in a row. Financial and oil & gas stocks were in high demand during the volatile week, keeping both headline indices well in the green, though selling pressure in healthcare and IT shares played spoilsport.

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NSE

Both Sensex and Nifty finished the first week of the New Year with a gain of 2.6 percent. The 30-scrip index added 1,490.8 points to settle at 59,744.7, and the broader Nifty barometer 458.7 points to 17,812.7.

For the Bank Nifty, which surged 6.4 percent, it was the biggest weekly gain since May 2021. Both Nifty Private Bank and Nifty Financial Services also surged almost six percent.

Broader markets also strengthened, with the Nifty Midcap 100 finishing 2.2 percent higher. The smallcap gauge rose 1.8 percent.

D-Street this week

Dalal Street began 2022 on a strong note but hit nervousness after Federal Reserve officials' hawkish tone in minutes released mid-week stoked fears of earlier-than-expected rate hikes, once again. That comes about three weeks after the US central bank revealed its intent to end its COVID-era bond buys purchases in March, and paved the way for three 25-bps hikes in key rates by the end of 2022.

Besides, nervousness persisted among investors globally amid surging cases of the Omicron variant of COVID-19.

Inflows from foreign institutional investors (FIIs) gave the domestic market a boost missing in the past several weeks. FIIs net purchases Indian equities worth Rs 3,202.1 crore ($430.5 million) in the week ended January 7. In October through December, they had withdrawn Rs 38,521 crore ($5.1 billion) from Indian shares.

Winners and losers

Barring IT, pharma and healthcare gauges, all of NSE's sectoral indices saw weekly gains.

The Nifty Healthcare and Pharma indices fell around 2.5 percent each. The Nifty IT declined 1.4 percent.

Among blue-chip stocks, as many as 39 Nifty50 constituents finished the week higher. Top gainers were Grasim, ONGC, Eicher Motors and the Bajaj twins.

On the other hand, Tech Mahindra, Dr Reddy's, Infosys, Divi's and Cipla were the top laggards.

Gainers

Losers

From the midcap and smallcap segments, India Cements, Magma Fincorp, Minda Corp, KPIT Tech, Greaves Cotton and Ujjivan Small Finance Bank -- surging 15-27 percent -- were among the top gainers.

On the other hand, Brigade Enterprises, APL Apollo, JB Chemicals, Vaibhav Global, Spandana Sphoorty and Dhanuka Agritech -- dropping 6-13 percent -- were among the laggards.

Some 320 stocks in the BSE 500 -- the broadest gauge on the bourse -- finished the week with gains.

First Published:Jan 7, 2022 9:14 PM IST