After a market holiday on Thursday, equity benchmarks closed on a weak note on Friday on the back of profit booking and poor performance by FMCG and oil and gas sector.
The benchmark BSE Sensex closed at 22,688, down 188 points or 0.82 per cent.The Nifty too slid to settle at 6,783 mark, down 58 points or 0.85 per cent.
On the BSE, except healthcare, tech, consumer durables and realty, metals and consumer durables all sectoral indices closed in the red. Oil and gas and FMCG sector were hit the most and closed lower by 2.11 per cent and 2.02 per cent respectively.
Alex Mathews, Head Research, Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services said: "The markets today fell, reversing all its previous day’s gain owing to weakness in the heavy weight stocks. Also weak global cues added to the investor concerns. However strong FII flows saved the markets from further down fall."
Volatility was down with the volatility index closing at 31, down 1.45 per cent.
M&M, Tech Mahindra, Dr Reddy, Axis Bank and HDFC were the top five Nifty gainers while Cairn, Ambuja Cements, BPCL, Ultratech Cements and Grasim were the top laggards.