The markets rebounded strongly towards close on Friday, riding on the back of a recovery in Europe. The Sensex recovered more than 400 points from its intra-day lows to close at 16,632, down 222 points and the Nifty ended at 4,943, lower by 62 points.
After nosediving in early trades, pressurised by banking and commodity stocks, the major European markets are now down only 0.5-1%.
Dubai jitters had weighed on investor sentiment in early trades. Asia and Europe tumbled after Dubai's government-owned investment company Dubai World asked for a restructuring of its debt amounting to $59 billion (£35bn). The company was hit hard by the global credit crunch and recession.
Jaiprakash Associates was the top loser on the Sensex, shedding 3% at Rs 214. L&T dropped 2.7% to Rs 1586 and Infosys declined 2.4% to Rs 2,328. TCS and Sterlite were the other major losers.
Bharti Airtel was the leading Sensex gainer, adding 0.9% at Rs 283. Hero Honda put on 0.5% at Rs 1,745 and Reliance Infrastructure strengthened 0.4% at Rs 1,039.
After languishing in the red throughout most of the session, Tata Steel made a smart recovery to end up 0.2% at Rs 544.
The market breadth was extremely negative. Out of 2,800 stocks traded on the BSE, 2,029 stocks declined, while 725 moved up.
