NSE & BSE decline in early trade

Mumbai: Equity benchmark indices declined in early trade on Friday, extending their previous day's fall, in line with weak trend in Asian markets and fresh foreign fund outflows. Rising interest rates globally also dampened investor sentiments. Markets also fell amid profit-taking after the recent rally, where the BSE barometer hit its record intra-day peak of 63,601.71 on Thursday.

Status of previous trading session

The BSE Sensex fell by 284.26 points or 0.45 percent to settle at 63,238.89 on Thursday. The Nifty went lower by 85.60 points or 0.45 percent to end at 18,771.25. According to exchange data, Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 693.28 crore on Thursday.

Position of stocks listed in BSE

From the Sensex pack, Tech Mahindra, Infosys, Power Grid, Tata Steel, UltraTech Cement, State Bank of India, Bajaj Finserv, HCL Technologies and Bajaj Finance were the major laggards. Asian Paints, NTPC, ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel, and Nestle were the gainers.

Performance of markets worldwide

In Asian markets, Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai, and Hong Kong were trading lower. The US markets ended on a mixed note on Thursday. Global oil benchmark Brent crude declined by 0.70 percent to USD 73.62 a barrel.

"After the Sensex hitting record highs, the market momentum has slowed down. The mood in the markets now is not so bullish, globally. The big wall of worry continues to be the rising interest rates. After the ECB's and Swiss National Bank's 25 basis points rate hike, the Bank of England surprised yesterday with a 50 bps rate hike. The message from the leading central banks, reiterated by the Fed in its recent Congressional testimony, is that they will not let down on containing inflation and there is a long way to go before the inflation target of two percent is reached," said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

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