Bulls would have hoped to have yet another winning week and chill out for the weekend. However, it turned out to be a fatal Friday as the indices wiped off most of the gains for the week. Friday’s fall was on account of profit booking and weak Asian markets. Next week we have a shortened trading week (Tuesday and Wednesday are holidays).

Strong global markets, short-covering of positions in the F&O segment due to settlement and encouraging Monetary Policy kept the bulls in good spirits through the week, barring Friday. Strong inflows from FIIs and good quarterly results aided the rally. The main indices managed to squeeze out some gains on a week on week basis keeping their winning streak alive for a third consecutive week.

Index heavyweights helped the indices climb higher in an action-packed week with a slew of corporate earnings, and much hyped RBI meet on credit policy. Dr. YV Reddy decided to take a pause in his long sequence of monetary tightening measures leading to a frantic buying in Bank, Real Estate and Auto stocks, which had been battered a lot over last two months.

Tata Power, ACC, Tata Motors and SBI were major gainers in the 30 Sensex stocks. On the other hand, Cipla, BHEL, Infosys and Dr Reddy’s were among the notable losers. Finally, the benchmark BSE Sensex added 11 points or 0.08% to close at 13908.58 and the NSE Nifty closed flat at 4083.5.

Real Estate, Construction & property stocks had been on the receiving end in recent times following increase in interest rates by RBI over last two months, got some relief after RBI decided to keep key lending rates unchanged to support slowing economic growth. Also, RBI declared that they would reduce risk-weighting on individual loans to 50% from current 75%, which droved the stock prices higher over the week. Nagarjuna Construction, IVRCL Infra, Parsvnath Developers, Bombay Dyeing and Sobha Developers were among the notable gainers.

Banking stocks find some taste with the investors following heavy battering over two months across the sector. However, RBI’s decision to leave the key Interest rates unchanged propelled the banking stocks higher with Index heavy weight SBI leading from front adding over 2.5% to close at Rs1101. ICICI Bank advanced by 2% to Rs935 and HDFC Bank added 2% to Rs1015. PNB, Union Bank, Indian Bank and Bank of India gained in the range of 4-18%.

A series of rate hikes by RBI had taken its toll on the Auto stocks over last two months. However, Tuesday proved to be an adventurous day for the Auto stocks, as they gained smartly after the RBI left its key overnight lending rate unchanged to spur economic growth. Maruti and Tata Motors led the fight back in Auto stocks as a pause in interest rate increase indicates vehicles would be available at lower interest rates. Tata Motors rose by over 3.5% to Rs749, Maruti added 2.2% to close at 796 and M7M raced ahead by adding 2.4% to Rs762.

Pharma stocks were a mixed bag as Cipla proved to be a major laggard for the Pharma index. The scrip plunged sharply after its Q4 profit fell by 34% to Rs1.26bn on lower earnings from the export of drug-ingredients and operations other than health-care. While Ranbaxy was among the star performers over the week after the company received U.S. approval to sell a generic version of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.'s Pravachol cholesterol lowering drug with exclusive marketing rights. The scrip added over 7% to close at Rs370.7 and Divis Labs added 2% to end at Rs3565. While STAR, Glenmark and Aurobindo Pharma were among the major losers bring the Pharma index down.

IT stocks continued to slide lower after Rupee advanced for a fifth day on Thursday, extending a rally to the highest in almost nine years. Concerns regarding control of inflation have led to speculation that the RBI bank will allow the Indian currency to strengthen against the Dollar. Wipro fell by 1% to Rs566, TCS lost over 1.7% to Rs1234, Satyam Computer was down by 1.9% to Rs467 and Infosys lost by 2% to close the week at Rs2007.