New Delhi, Jan 12 (IANS): Amol Athawale, Vice-President, Technical Research at Kotak Securities on Friday said that in the last week, the benchmark indices witnessed volatile activity after a roller coaster activity.

He said that the NIFTY ended at 0.91 per cent higher while the Sensex gained over 840 points.

He said that among sectors, IT and Reality indices outperformed both the indices and gained over 4 per cent whereas FMCG and financial stocks registered profit booking at higher levels.

“As a result, FMCG index is down over 2 per cent while financial services have shed nearly 1 per cent,” he said.

Vaibhav Vidwani, Research Analyst, Bonanza Portfolio, said that at closing, the Indian benchmark indices closed on positive note for the fifth consecutive day.

“The Sensex was up 847.27 points, or 1.18 per cent, at 72,568 at the closing, while the Nifty was up 247.35 points, or 1.14 per cent, at 21,894.55,” Vaibhav Vidwani said.

He said that the Nifty IT was the single biggest gainer as it jumped about 5.14 per cent with Infosys gaining about 7.93 per cent and Coforge 5.68 per cent.

“Tech Mahindra, Wipro, TCS, Mphasis, and LTIMindtree were up about 4 per cent each while the investors' perception that Q3 marked the bottom of the IT firms' earnings downgrade cycle and their hope that strong contract wins in the next quarters would progressively translate into revenue, was the reason behind this movement,” he said.

Top gainers on the Nifty were Infosys, ONGC, Tech Mahindra, LTIMindtree and TCS while the losers were Cipla, Apollo Hospitals, Power Grid Corporation, UltraTech Cement and Bajaj Finserv.