By IANS
Mumbai : Indian capital markets opened on an extremely weak note Friday morning with the Sensex down 430 points and the Nifty dipping by 127 points, in line with global trends.
Heavy selling was witnessed across the sectors in the early hour of trade, led by capital goods and metals. Cues from the Asian and the global markets were also tenuous.
At 9:56 a.m., the sensitive index of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) was down 430 points at 19,293. And the broader S&P CNX Nifty was down by 127 points at 5,739.
The markets pulled back significantly from the early lows but were still under deep pressure. All the key BSE indices were trading in the red but capital goods, realty and oil and gas stocks saw good buying.
Asian markets fell sharply Friday, hurt by an overnight sell-off on Wall Street. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng tumbled 2.54 percent or 798.36 points at 30,694.52, Japan’s Nikkei fell 1.71 percent or 289.13 points at 16,581.27, Taiwan’s Taiwan Weighted was down 1.79 percent or 171.84 points at 9,426.39, Singapore’s Straits Times plunged 1.74 percent or 66.23 points at 3,737.33 and South Korea’s Seoul Composite declined 0.72 percent or 14.92 points at 2,048.22.
BSE mid-cap and small-cap index outperformed Sensex Friday morning.
The overall market breadth was negative with over 700 stocks on the downside and only 415 stocks on the advancing side. The Indian rupee was at 39.36 against a US dollar.
Among the top gainers on the index were ITC at Rs.174 up by 1.34 percent, NTPC at Rs.233.20 up by 1.33 percent and Larsen & Toubro at Rs.4,479 up by 1.24 percent.
Among the top losers on the index were Bharti Airtel at Rs.894.70 down by 4.83 percent, Maruti Suzuki at Rs.971.50 down by 3.48 percent and Sterlite Industries at Rs.988.90 down by 3.39 percent.