Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 108.93 crore on Thursday, as per provisional data released by the stock exchanges.

Sector-wise, healthy buying was observed in oil and gas, automobile and consumer durables stocks.

Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above the psychological 8,550 and 28,250 levels respectively.

The market has opened flat with a positive bias.

The Nifty slipped 24.05 points at 8564.60.

The Nifty snapped a 2-day rally on Friday as traders remained on sidelines ahead of the weekend and concentrated more on earnings related stocks rather than blue chips. There were 14 stocks advancing against 16 stocks declining on the index.

Biggest gainers in the 30-share index were Vedanta (2.17%), Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (2.02%), Mahindra & Mahindra (1.84%), Tata Motors (1.48%), Reliance Industries (0.90%), and Infosys (0.75%).

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.36%, while Small cap index gained 0.40%. However, banking, capital goods and healthcare sectors came under selling pressure. Coal India also lost over 3 per cent. Moody’s however cautioned that the banks still need access to the equity markets to materially improve their capital levels and pointed that in the recent times the PSU banks have not been able to access capital market which is a “key negative driver of their overall credit profile”.

Media reports that market regulator SEBI has started cracking down on offshore units of major global banks for their suspected role in manipulation of share prices in the domestic market also weighed on investor sentiment.

Sun Pharma gained 0.6 percent as Taro’s first quarter net sales jumped 65 percent and margin expanded by 2070 basis points to 62.5 percent.

The losers: BHEL, down 5.81 per cent at Rs 265.80; Coal India, down 3.61 per cent at Rs 415.55, State Bank of India (SBI), down 2.38 per cent at Rs 281.40; Bajaj Auto, down 1.46 per cent at Rs 2,537.85; and NTPC, down 1.33 per cent at Rs 133.85.

The S and P BSE Sensex, which opened at 28,327.11 points, was trading at 28,246.31 points (2.30 p.m.) – down 51.82 points or 0.18 percent from the previous day’s close at 28,298.13 points. The Auto index was at 19,868.37, up by 116.49 points or by 0.59%.