The week ended on a cheerless note for stocks as benchmark indices slid for the fourth consecutive session on rampant selling by foreign portfolio investors — amid rising bond yields, firm crude oil prices and fears of monetary policy tightening by central banks because of inflation.

While the Sensex plunged 427.44 points to end at 59037.18, the broader Nifty was lower 0.79 per cent or 139.85 points at 17617.15. Over the past four sessions, the 30-share gauge has crashed over 2271 points while investor wealth as measured by market cap has come down over Rs 10 lakh crore.

Market circles pointed that there was nothing remarkable about the quarterly results declared so far. Although the IT players have reported good results, other sectors continue to battle rising input costs which have affected their margins and volume growth.

Meanwhile, the RBI held a three-day variable rate repo auction of Rs 75,000 crore, in an attempt to infuse liquidity into the system. Amid GST payments, liquidity had tightened resulting in inter-bank call money rates rising above four per cent. On Thursday, the central bank had conducted an overnight variable rate repo auction of Rs 50,000 crore.

In the auction, the RBI received bids worth Rs 1,22,170 crore and the cut-off rate was fixed at 4.09 per cent which is higher than the repo rate of 4 per cent.

They added that the focus will now turn to the Union budget on February 1. Analysts expect global factors are likely to check any stock rally in India.

The 30-share Sensex on Friday opened lower at 59,039.37 on weak global cues and hit a day’s low of 58620.93-a fall of almost 844 points. Though it did attempt to recover some of the losses, the bearish undertone saw the index ending with a loss of 0.72 per cent.

In the Sensex pack, Bajaj Finserv was the largest percentage loser as its shares fell by 5.37 per cent. It was followed by Tech Mahindra, Tata Steel, Bharti Airtel and others which fell up to 4.44 per cent.

Provisional data showed that FPIs sold stocks worth Rs 3149 crore in today’s trade.

``We have seen a good selloff in the market this week which was on the back of global market clues and some profit booking before the Budget. We expect the market to continue its volatility till the Budget and suggest investors be cautious’’ Yash Gupta- Equity Research Analyst, Angel One Ltd said.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) conducted a three-day variable rate repo auction of Rs 75,000 crore, in an attempt to infuse some liquidity into the system. Amid GST payments, liquidity had tightened resulting in inter-bank call money rates rising above four per cent. On Thursday, the central bank had conducted an overnight variable rate repo auction of Rs 50,000 crore.

In today’s auction, the RBI received bids worth Rs 1,22,170 crore and the cut-off rate was fixed at 4.09 per cent which is higher than the repo rate of 4 per cent.