Staff of Reuters Read for 2 minutes (Reuters) – BENGALURU (Reuters) – Gains in metal and pharmaceutical stocks were offset by a profit-taking spree in the IT sector, as Indian shares pulled back from record highs to close little changed on Friday. On November 4, 2020, people walk past the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) building in Mumbai, India. FILE PHOTO: REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas The Nifty 50 index fell 0.01 percent to 15,923.40, while the S&P BSE Sensex dropped 0.04 percent to 53,140.06. Both indexes gained nearly 1.5 percent this week, marking the first weekly gain in three weeks. Strong results from software services heavyweights like Infosys Ltd, MindTree Ltd, and Wipro Ltd helped the Nifty IT index close 1.07 percent lower on Friday but gain 2.5 percent for the week. With several Indian startups going public to cash in on liquidity by foreign funds, investors are cautious of high valuations fuelling a range-bound movement in the two major indexes. Paytm, a digital payments startup, has filed for an initial public offering (IPO) worth up to 166 billion rupees ($2.23 billion), according to draft papers filed with India’s stock exchange. Food delivery startup Zomato’s $1.3 billion stock offering was nearly eight times oversubscribed before it closed on Friday. A day after the world’s largest producer, China, reported a drop in crude steel output, the Nifty Metal index rose 1.05 percent, boosted by gains in Tata Steel and JSW Steel. The Nifty Pharma index, which had lost 0.27 percent on Thursday, reached an all-time high on Friday and closed 1.2 percent higher. Angel Broking’s stock soared 20% to an all-time high and was locked in its upper circuit after the stockbroker’s consolidated profit more than doubled in the June quarter. Global shares held steady while U.S. Treasury yields hovered near multi-month lows on Friday, with markets looking to U.S. consumer data as the next test of the Federal Reserve’s dovish rates outlook. [MKTS/GLOB] 74.5140 Indian rupees = $1 Shivani Singh contributed reporting from Bengaluru, and Ramakrishnan M. edited the piece./n
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