Indian shares edged down on Friday, a day after hitting their highest levels this year, as investors booked profits in recent outperformers, but indexes still posted a near 1 per cent weekly gain on the back of strong overseas flows.

The 50-share NSE index Nifty fell 12.75 points or 0.16 per cent to 7,899.30, posting a 0.6 per cent gain for the week after hitting its highest since December 2 on Thursday.

The benchmark BSE index ended down by 42.24 points or 0.16 per cent at 25,838.14, posting a weekly gain of 0.8 per cent.

Among BSE sectoral indices, FMCG index fell the most by 0.78 per cent, followed by IT 0.57 per cent, TECk 0.47 per cent and consumer durables 0.46 per cent. On the other hand, PSU index was up 0.87 per cent, auto 0.87 per cent, infrastructure 0.47 per cent and banking 0.44 per cent.

Top five Sensex gainers were Maruti (+3.07%), State Bank of India (+2.94%), ONGC (+1.55%), Axis Bank (+1.51%) and NTPC (+1.49%), while the major losers were HUL (-2.04%), Asian Paints (-1.84%), HDFC (-1.51%), Sun Pharma (-1.48%) and ITC (-1.18%).

Among decliners, Housing Development Finance Corp fell 1.5 per cent after gaining 2.3 per cent on Thursday on news that the mortgage lender plans to list up to 10 per cent stake in life insurance joint venture.

Asian Paints fell nearly 2 per cent after rising by about the same level this week.

Miner NMDC fell 2.2 per cent on media reports that the government is planning to sell a 10 per cent stake in the state-run firm to raise Rs 4,000 crore ($600.9 million).

But banking stocks rose for another session after a media report on Thursday said the central bank had trimmed the list of companies that needed bad loan provisioning. State Bank of India rose nearly 3 per cent and Punjab National Bank rose 1.7 per cent.

HDFC Bank rose 0.11 per cent after the lender reported a 20 per cent jump in March-quarter net profit at Rs 3,374 crore, in-line with market expectations.

IndusInd Bank was up 0.83 per cent after some brokers raised price targets on the stock following in-line quarterly results.

Rate cut, monsoon hopes

Stocks rose nearly 1 per cent this week and were on the verge of turning positive for the year on hopes the central bank would continue to cut interest rates in view of easing inflation and expectations of good monsoon rains.

Foreign investors bought a net $872.22 million worth of Indian shares so far this month, taking this year's inflows to $1.41 billion.

But analysts warned shares could see a slowdown in the pace of gains, with heavyweight Reliance Industries slated to report their quarterly results later in the day.

“Markets seem to be back in a bull range, but it can't be a one-way street. There has to be some correction or consolidation and that's exactly we should expect now,” said Ambareesh Baliga, a Mumbai-based independent market analyst.

A report by SMC Global said: "Asian stocks retreated from a four-month high as the yen held gains, weighing on Japanese exporters, and companies including Sony Corp and Microsoft Corp reported earnings that fell short of estimates. Crude oil resumed its advance. Major US stock indexes turned in their largest declines in two weeks Thursday, pulling back after days of edging closer to record highs. Telecommunications and utilities shares led the broad losses, which pulled the Dow Jones Industrial Average back below 18,000 after the index this week closed above the milestone for the first time since July. US leading economic index rose 0.2 per cent in March after edging down by a revised 0.1 per cent in February. Economists had expected the index to climb by 0.5 per cent compared to the 0.1 per cent uptick originally reported for the previous month."

Global markets

European shares fell on Friday following some disappointing company news, with automaker Daimler sliding after its results and a planned probe into its emissions certification process, while poor sales also hit luxury group Kering.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index fell 0.5 per cent in early trading, although it remained on track for its second straight week of gains

Asian shares slid from a 5 1/2-month high on Friday as disappointing earnings from US blue-chip companies poured cold water on the rally that took off in March.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan dropped 0.6 per cent, a day after it hit its highest level since early November. With that decline, gains for the week shrink to 0.5 per cent.

Wall Street suffered its first loss in four sessions on Thursday after a mixed bag of quarterly reports and a warning by Verizon Communications that a strike by workers would likely impact its bottom line.

The benchmark S&P 500 index in recent days had rallied to within 1 per cent of its May record high, buoyed by a softer dollar and recovering crude prices. But investors had little patience for quarterly scorecards failing to meet already toned-down expectations.

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