Sensex ends 299 pts down on FII selling; metals melt

As foreign institutional investors pared their holdings following depreciation of rupee to one-year low, equity benchmarks fell face down on Friday. Even the announcement of a USD 447 billion job plan by US President Barrack Obama failed to ignite global market sentiments. Fed chairman Ben Bernanke's speech too was devoid of quantitative easing assurance.  The 30-share BSE Sensex tumbled 298.57 points or 1.74%, to close at 16,866.97 and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 93.80 points or 1.82%, to end at 5,059.45.

Experts justified profit bookings in today's session as the market had rallied in six out of previous seven sessions. "I will put this down to profit booking because in the last few trading sessions, the market has gone up from 4750 to 5150," Portfolio Manager, PN Vijay said.

The Indian rupee depreciated for the fifth consecutive session today and touched a fresh one-year low at 46.49 per USD, hammered by euro's losses. Soumyo Dutta of Citibank fears the momentum could push it beyond Rs 47 (to a dollar).

Dutta has his eyes on the upcoming FOMC meet, the ONGC FPO, and the vote on Obama's jobs report which will determine the movement for the rupee.

For the week, the Sensex and Nifty closed marginally in the green.

All key sectors participated in the fall; the BSE Metal, IT, Bank, Oil & Gas, Realty and Power indices were down 2-3% each. The BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices fell over 0.8%.