MUMBAI: The Dalal Street has opened to weak trade taking cues from global markets on the last day of the week. At 9.30 am, the BSE Sensex declined 62 points 17,929 and the NSE Nifty fell 20 points to 5,388. Barring healthcare stocks that saw buying, all indices were trading in the red. IT and FMCG stocks led the declines. TCS, Wipro and Infosys fell 0.60 per cent. ITC declined 1.02 per cent.
The broader markets saw buying interest. The BSE small cap index rose 0.43 per cent and the CNX midcap gained 0.40 per cent. Overall, 60 per cent stocks advanced on the BSE in early trade.
On the Sensex, 6 stocks advanced while 24 declined. Hero Honda was the biggest loser, down 2.48 per cent. The company reported a net profit of Rs.491.69 cr vs ` 500.11 cr. (YOY) that was below market expectation. ITC and ICICI Bank were pulling down the index by 20 points while RIL pushed the index up by 12 points.
M&M, Maruti and RIL gained in early trade. Sterlite and ONGC declined.
ONGC declined 1.01 per cent and Federal Bank fell 3.49 per cent on results. Central Bank rose 5.51 per cent on good earnings. All these companies reported earnings after market hours on Thursday.
ABB, Reliance Power, BPCL, HPCL and Reliance Infra are some companies to announce earnings today.
Global markets look weak ahead of the GDP number for the April-June quarter in the US. Investors are concerned about recovery in the world’s largest economy and the signals so far have been far from reassuring despite strong earnings from many Wall Street companies. On Thursday, the Labour department said that the weekly claims for unemployment benefits fell marginally but the small drop failed to enthuse investors. The Dow fell 31 points to end at 10,467.
Asian markets fell after Wall Street declined. The Nikkei 225 in Japan slipped 1.75 per cent to 9,526 at 9.30 am. The Kospi in South Korea was down 0.77 per cent and the Hang Seng dropped 0.48 per cent.
The Chinese markets were lower too.
