New Delhi, February 21 (HS): Due to selling by foreign institutional investors and vehicle shares, both the major indexes of the stock market closed with a decline on Friday, the last trading day of the week. The Sensex of Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) fell 424.90 points or 0.56 percent to close at 75,311.06. At the same time, the Nifty of National Stock Exchange (NSE) also closed at 22,795.90, falling 117.25 points or 0.51 percent.

Out of 30 shares of Sensex, 22 shares saw a decline, while 8 shares rose. Similarly, out of 50 shares of Nifty, 37 shares fell and 13 shares rose. Among the major Sensex stocks, Mahindra & Mahindra fell by more than six per cent. Similarly, shares of Adani Ports, Tata Motors, Sun Pharma, Power Grid, ICICI Bank, Zomato, State Bank of India and UltraTech Cement also closed in loss. The stocks that remained in profit include Tata Steel, Larsen & Toubro, HCL Tech, HDFC Bank, Asian Paints and NTPC.

Experts say that the local stock markets performed weaker than the Asian and European markets. According to stock market data, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth Rs 3,311.55 crore on Thursday. Apart from this, South Korea's Kaspi, Japan's Nikkei, China's Shanghai Composite and Hong Kong's Hang Seng closed with gains in other Asian markets. European markets also closed mostly with gains. Global oil benchmark Brent crude fell 0.59 per cent to $76.05 per barrel.

A day earlier on Thursday, the BSE Sensex closed at 75,735.96, down 203.22 points or 0.27 percent. The NSE Nifty closed at 22,913.15, down 19.75 points or 0.09 percent.

Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar