By IANS
Mumbai : The Indian equities market opened deep in the red Friday in line with its Asian peers. The sharp fall was led by the selling of scrips in key sectors.
The 30-share benchmark sensitive index of Bombay Stock Exchange opened with a huge loss of 330.12 points at 16,211.96 and kept going down further. About an hour after the start of trading, the Sensex was at 15,982.54, 559.54 points down from its close Wednesday, a drop of 3.38 percent.
The Indian bourses had been closed on Thursday on account of Shivratri.
Twenty minutes into trading, the S&P Nifty of National Stock Exchange was at 4,771.75, down by nearly 150 points from its previous close.
The market breadth was extremely weak with low volumes. In the initial trade 178 scrips advanced, 1,560 declined and 26 remained unchanged.
Other Asian markets also slipped further Friday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 756.19 points, Japan’s Nikkei plunged 3.33 percent, Taiwan’s Taiwan Weighted declined 1.23 percent, Singapore’s Straits Times was down 2.28 percent and South Korea’s Seoul Composite tumbled 2.46 percent.
On Thursday, the Dow had plunged 214.60 points, or 1.75 percent, to 12,040.39 as credit concerns rattled the US market and lacklustre retail sales compounded worries about the economy.
Reliance Energy, Siemens, DLF, ICICI Bank, Satyam, Zee Enetertainment were among the few gainers on the Indian indices Friday.
Large power stocks like Tata Power and Suzlon led the laggards in initial trade.