Equity benchmarks snapped seven-day losing streak on Friday with thin volumes ahead of Christmas holiday but closed the week with nearly 2 percent losses. Short covering and optimism about GST implementation helped the market close in green after losing 718 points on the Sensex in previous seven consecutive sessions.The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 61.10 points at 26040.70 and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 6.65 points to 7985.75 amid consolidation due to lack of global and domestic cues.

The broader markets underperformed benchmarks with the BSE Midcap losing 0.4 percent on weak breadth.

Experts expect the consolidation to continue as the futures & options contracts of the December month will expire next week. According to them, after the recent correction, the downside seems to be capped as about 70 percent of negative factors already priced in.

Now all eyes are on events happening in January – announcement of December quarter earnings and Q4 outlook especially after demonetisation and US president-elect Donald Trump’s policies.

No fresh upward triggers are likely in the market till January 2017. Investors have been waiting for demonetisation to completely play out and the liquidity to come back in. This is the reason for low volumes in trade, says Dipan Mehta, Member of BSE and NSE.

He expects the liquidity to be back in market right before the earnings season begins.

Anish Damania of IDFC Securities says that the market may not see a recovery soon and there will be three quarters of dismay due to demonetisation.

The earnings growth will be impacted and earnings growth of non-financial sector can come down close to zero percent from 15 percent, he feels.

Healthcare, infra and HDFC Group stocks led the market higher while banks, select technology and FMCG stocks closed in red.

Cipla was the biggest gainer among Sensex 30 stocks, up 4 percent after its flagship product Sereflo, which is indicated for asthma treatment, has received approval from the UK MHRA.

Sun Pharma rebounded 2.4 percent after losing nearly 11 percent in previous seven consecutive sessions. The company has acquired 14.58 percent stake in US company scPharmaceuticals Plc for USD 13 million. Macquarie has retained its outperform rating on the stock with a target price of Rs 850, saying resolution of Halol plant remains a catalyst for the company.

Divis Laboratories shares crashed 22 percent following reports of adverse observations from the USFDA made on its Vizag facility. The observations pertained to data integrity, improper controls and violations of current good manufacturing practices (cGMP).

HDFC Bank, Maruti Suzuki, L&T, Bajaj Auto, Hero Motocorp and GAIL gained 1-2 percent while ITC, Axis Bank, ONGC, M&M and Wipro were down 1-2 percent.

Edelweiss Financial was up 2 percent as a media report indicated that the company is likely to raise Rs 600-750 crore via ECL Finance listing.