The market ended its five-week winning streak, ending in the red for the week ended 8th October on all-round selling pressure and tepid cues from the global and domestic arena. Nervousness ahead of the domestic earnings season, which kicks off next week, also kept investors on the sidelines. However, inflows from foreign investors limited the losses.

The market witnessed a positive close on Monday, added to the splendid gains accrued on Friday (1st October). However, the other four trading days of this week were lacklustre as the indices ended with sharp cuts. Weak economic data emanating from the US influenced domestic bourses on Tuesday. The market closed the session with marginal losses. While the bourses opened firm on Wednesday on assurances from various central banks, profit booking took away the gains in the post-noon session.

Ignoring global trends, the Indian market opened on a firm note on Thursday but huge selling pressure knocked the indices down over 1%. Concerns over the pace of the global economic recovery saw the indices open sideways on the last trading day of the week. The market ended trade off the day's lows amid a choppy session. Pullback by institutional investors after the recent rally and the view that the recent rally was overbought could be attributed to the market ending lower after five weeks of gains.

The market ended 1% lower with the Sensex losing 194.78 points and the Nifty shedding 39.95 points for the week ended 8th October.

The top weekly gainers on the Sensex were Reliance Communications (RCom) (up 7%), Jaiprakash Associates (up 6%), Hindalco Industries (up %), Reliance Industries (RIL) and Cipla (up 4% each). Tata Steel (down 6%), Hindustan Unilever (HUL) (down 5%), HDFC Bank, Bharti Airtel and ITC (down 4% each) all ended as losers.

In the sectoral space, BSE Healthcare (HC) (up 3%) and BSE Oil & Gas (up 2%) were top gainers while BSE Fast Moving Consumer Goods (down 3%) and BSE Capital Goods (CG) (down 1%) were the losers in the week under review.

Food inflation fell marginally to 16.24% for the week ended 25th September, down 20 percentage points from 16.44% in the previous week. Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee is hopeful that the steps taken by the government and by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) would bring inflation down to 6% by the end of this financial year.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has projected that the Indian economy will grow by 9.7% in 2010 and 8.4% in the next fiscal, driven by robust industrial production and macroeconomic performance.

However, neighbouring China is expected to grow at an even faster rate of 10.5% in 2010 and 9.6% in 2011, driven by domestic demand, the IMF said in its latest World Economic Outlook report.