After a continuous downtrend, the domestic stock market bounced back and closed with gains in the last trading session of the week. On Friday, the benchmark Sensex of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) closed at a level of 78,699.07 with a sharp jump of 226.59 points. Similarly, the National Stock Exchange (NSE) index Nifty 50 also closed at a level of 23,813.40 at the end of trading with a gain of 63.2 points. During trading, Dr. Reddy's Labs, M&M, IndusInd Bank, Eicher Motors, Bajaj Finance were seen trading as the top gainers on Nifty today, while Hindalco Industries, SBI, ONGC, Coal India, Bharat Electronics registered a decline.

Strength in auto, pharma, media sector

According to the news, the BSE Midcap index was trading flat, while the Smallcap index was seen up by 0.3 percent. Auto, Pharma, Media sectors showed strength. Realty, PSU Bank, Oil & Gas, Metal indexes looked weak. The Sensex today opened at 78,607.62 against its previous close of 78,472.48 and touched its intraday high and low of 79,043.15 and 78,598.55 respectively. The Nifty Pharma index saw a jump of 1.30 percent. The Nifty Auto index gained one percent. The Nifty Bank gained 0.27 percent and the Private Bank index gained 0.49 percent. However, the PSU Bank index fell by 0.89 percent. The Nifty Metal, Oil & Gas and Realty index fell by one percent.

Asian markets on the rise

Asian markets were up on Friday. Japanese stocks rose on the back of a weaker yen. Japan's Nikkei index closed up 1.8 per cent. In Seoul, the market closed down 1.02 per cent after the won fell to a 16-year low of 1,480.20 per US dollar on Friday morning. In Asia, Shanghai, Mumbai, Malaysia, Taipei, Singapore, Sydney and Bangkok were all in the green. Hong Kong was steady while Manila was down. London was down while Frankfurt and Paris were both up in early European trade. Around 0800 GMT, the Tokyo - Nikkei 225 was up 1.8 per cent at 40,281.16. The Hang Seng was up 0.1 per cent at 20,116.93. The Shanghai - Composite was up 0.1 per cent at 3,400.14.