After a near two per cent fall on Thursday, stock markets ended the flat on Friday. The S&P BSE Sensex closed the day at 19,317, down 0.04 per cent from its previous close. The NSE Nifty ended the day at 5,850, down 0.03 per cent from its previous close.
“For today, the global cues were negative as the US markets sold off on the back of disappointing economic reports and amid worries that the Federal Reserve might scale back its bond-buying program,” said Sanjeev Zarbade, Vice President- Private Client Group Research, Kotak Securities.
On the BSE, stocks of the realty and technology indices were up about 1.3 per cent each. The FMCG index fell the most by 1.4 per cent.
Among the Sensex stocks, the top five gainers were Bharti Airtel, Wipro, Sun Pharma, ICICI Bank and Infosys. The top five laggards were HUL, Coal India, Maruti, HDFC and Tata Motors.