Mumbai: The benchmark Sensex on Friday hit new high of 29,844.16 but succumbed to heavy profit-booking led by banking shares to fall by 498.82 points to 29,182.95, logging its worst drop in three weeks, even as the government's mega share sale in Coal India sailed through.
The NSE Nifty, which hit its all-time high of 8,996.60 earier in the session, snapped its ten-day long rally to close at 8,808.90, down by 143.45 points or 1.60 per cent.
"Domestic bourses witnessed steep decline on Friday, tracking negative global cues and profit taking in index majors across the board," said Religare Securities, President-retail distribution, Jayant Manglik.
Market breadth was negative, and volumes were higher than the last session. Among the sectoral indices, Banking was the top loser, down by more than three percent, followed by Consumer Durables and Auto. Capital Goods, Metal and Oil & Gas were other major losers.
In major earnings, country's largest private sector lender ICICI Bank on Friday posted 13.68 per cent rise in net profit at Rs 3,265.32 crore for the third quarter ended December. Its shares dropped nearly 5 per cent on asset quality concerns, brokers said.
"Q3 earnings triggered a sell off on banking and financial stocks today. Bank of Baroda posted weak Q3 results causing significant sell off on PSBs and private banks," said WealthRays Securities Director & CEO Kiran Kumar Kavikondala.
Meanwhile, in the biggest ever disinvestment exercise, the government's 10 per cent stake sale in Coal India on Friday got over subscribed by 1.05 times and fetched about Rs 22,600 crore although retail investors did not bid so aggressively.
This is also the biggest ever share sale by any private or public sector company in India and exceeds the previous record of over Rs 15,000 crore made by CIL itself in 2010.
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