The Indian equity benchmarks erased early gains on Friday dragged by losses in Reliance Industries, Infosys, HDFC, ICICI Bank, Hindustan Unilever and Tata Steel. However, the losses were capped owing to buying interest in Kotak Mahindra Bank, ITC, NTPC, Maruti Suzuki and Larsen & Toubro. The Sensex fell as much as 208 points and Nifty 50 index touched an intraday low of 17,476 after hitting high of 17,643.
As of 9:46 am, the Sensex was down 84 points at 58,682 and Nifty 50 index fell 34 points to 17,508.
Asian shares were mixed and the dollar stood tall on Friday ahead of a key U.S. jobs report as investors braced for more aggressive rate hikes from the Federal Reserve, while commodities took an overnight dive amid new China lockdowns.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan remained largely unchanged in early Asia trade, but was headed for its worst weekly performance in seven with a drop of 3 per cent, as rising expectations of hawkish global rate hikes hit risky assets.
Most of the Asian markets were trading lower with Japan's Nikkei down 0.27 per cent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.48 per cent and Taiwan Weighted declined 0.24 per cent.
A late burst of buying erased some of the stock market’s losses Thursday, leaving indexes mixed on Wall Street at the closing bell.
The S&P 500 index of large companies managed to eke out a tiny gain, all of it coming in the last 10 minutes of trading. That ended a four-day losing streak for the benchmark index.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average also climbed about half a percent. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index fell, as did several measures of small and mid-size companies.
Back home, buying was visible across sectors as ten of 15 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher led by the Nifty Media index's 0.7 per cent gain. Nifty Auto, Realty, Consumer Durables and FMCG stocks were witnessing buying interest.
On the other hand, select IT, metal, pharma and PSU banking shares were witnessing a mild selling pressure.
Mid- and small-cap shares were outperforming their larger peers as Nifty Midcap 100 index rose 0.62 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index per cent.
Adani Enterprises rose 1 per cent to Rs 3,264 after NSE announced that it will be included in Nifty 50 basket of shares from September 30 and it will replace Shree Cement.
