Indian equities continued to trade on a flat note with negative bias on Friday. Energy, FMCG and pharma stocks declined while capital goods, banks, realty and metal stocks gained.
At 10.25 a.m., the Sensex was trading down 120.85 points or 0.21% at 58,340.44 with 10 components registering fall. Meanwhile, the Nifty was trading lower by 28.65 points or 0.16% at 17,373 with 22 components posting fall.
Biggest gainers in the 30-share index were Larsen & Toubro (1.69%), UltraTech Cement (1.67%), Infosys (0.67%), Axis Bank (0.61%), IndusInd Bank (0.54%), ICICI Bank (0.39%) and Kotak Mahindra Bank (0.30%).
On the other hand, Dr Reddy’s (1.44%), Bharti Airtel (1.44%), Nestle India (1.23%), Reliance Industries (1.04%), Asian Paints (0.97%), Sun Pharma (0.92%) and ITC (0.91%) were the major losers in the Sensex. Market breadth was positive with 1,924 advances against 1,011 declines.
On global front, Asian stocks declined from the intra-day high as traders evaluated risks from the omicron virus strain, while Treasury yields pared a climb spurred by Federal Reserve comments about a quicker reduction in stimulus. Equities fluctuated in Japan, fell in South Korea and Hong Kong. US Dow Future slipped over 0.3% and SGX Nifty declined 0.3%.
A broad rally on Wall Street pushed stocks higher on Thursday, giving the S&P 500 its best day (up 1.4%) in seven weeks as the market recouped some of its losses after several days of volatile trading. The Dow Jones rose over 1.8% and Russell 2000 Index surged nearly 3%, its best showing since early March. The market rebound comes as investors try to gauge the amount of damage the omicron variant of COVID-19 might inflict on the economy, as well as measures that the U.S. and other governments are taking to restrain it.
European stocks closed lower on Thursday as investors continue to be rattled by the new and highly infectious COVID-19 variant, omicron, which is spreading rapidly across the world. UK Index declined half percent while Germany and France Index declined 1% each.
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