The Indian equity benchmarks extended losses in afternoon trading on Friday dragged by losses in index heavyweights like HDFC Bank, Infosys, ICIC Bank, Titan and Maruti Suzuki amid subdued global cues. Most of the Asian markets ended lower with Japan's Nikkei down 0.13 per cent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng down 0.44 per cent and Taiwan Weighted down 0.2 per cent. The Sensex fell as much as 184 points and Nifty 50 index touched an intraday low of 17,171.
As of 2:20 pm, the Sensex was down 335 points at 57,260 and Nifty 50 index fell 97 points to 17,126.
Meanwhile, Asian shares were headed for a second successive week of gains on Friday, though trading was choppy amid hawkish U.S. monetary policy, shifts in Chinese economic policy, and ongoing ructions in commodity markets due to the war in Ukraine, news agency Reuters reported.
Back home, nine of 15 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading lower led by the Nifty Consumer Durable index's nearly 1 per cent fall. Nifty Bank, FMCG, Financial Services, Pharma and Private Bank indices were also trading with a negative bias.
On the other hand, realty, media, metal and auto shares were witnessing buying interest.
Mid- and small-cap shares were outperforming their larger peers as Nifty Midcap 100 index rose 0.4 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index advanced 0.7 per cent.
Titan was top Nifty loser, the stock fell 2.3 per cent to Rs 2,558. Tata Consumer Products, Maruti Suzuki, Tech Mahindra, Asian Paints, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, Nestle India, ICICI Bank, Power Grid, Infosys, Dr Reddy's Labs and Coal India also fell between 0.4-1.9 per cent.
On the flipside, Bajaj Auto, Hero MotoCorp, Bharti Airtel, UPL, ONGC, State Bank of India, Adani Ports, Tata Motors and HDFC Life were among the gainers.
The overall market breadth was positive as 1,688 shares were trading higher while 984 were declining on the BSE.
