The benchmark Bombay Stock Exchange Sensex ended 64 points up at 30,921.61 on Friday, overcoming losses caused by cautious market sentiment ahead of the roll-out of the Goods and Services Tax at midnight. Weak Asian markets following overnight Wall Street losses also hurt investor sentiment in early trade, before the Sensex made a recovery, reported Mint.

The National Stock Exchange Nifty finished 16.80 points up after hitting a low of 9,448.75 in the morning trade. “There is some kind of profit-booking and sideways consolidation in the market, so most sectors are volatile,” said Siddharth Sedani, head and vice president, of equity advisory Anand Rathi.

However, the BSE index ended 1.03% down for the week and 1.04% for the month, while the NSE showed a monthly decline of 1.4%.

ITC gained the most on the Sensex on Friday, finishing 12.20 points up at Rs 323.60 per share. The next four top gainers were Sun Pharma, Cipla, Tata Steel and Dr Reddys Laboratories. The top five losers on the BSE were Tata Motors (DVR), Hero Motocorp, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries.

On the Nifty, the top five gainers were Bank of Baroda, ITC, Sun Pharma, Cipla and Bharat Petroleum. The five stocks that declined the most were Tata Motors (DVR), Indiabulls Housing Finance, Tech Mahindra, Tata Power and Eicher Motors.

IndiGo Airlines owner InterGlobe Aviation Ltd slid as much as 5.82% on the NSE after falling 2.2% on Thursday, as the company expressed interest in buying the international business of Air India, which is being privatised by the government.

Other Asian markets had a particularly poor day, with four out of five major indices ending in red, reported CNN-Money. Japan’s Nikkei fell by 186.87 points, the Hong Kong Hang Seng by 200 points or 0.77% and the Taiwan TSEC 50 index by 26.58 points. Only the Shanghai SE Corporate Index rose marginally to close 4.36 points up at 3192.43.

Australia’s ASX All Ordinaries fell by 91 points.

Meanwhile, the rupee traded at 64.87 to the dollar at 3:50 pm, up 3 paise.