Mr Vishal Wagh, Research Head
Indian equity benchmarks made a cautious start on Friday amid mixed global cues. Markets are trading a tad higher in early deals on account of buying in Telecom, PSU, and Oil & Gas stocks. Key benchmark indices continued their sluggish trade in the late afternoon session, with Sensex and Nifty falling above 140 and 25 points, respectively. A level of pressure was seen on frontline stocks, especially Reliance Industries and Ultratech Cement. Sentiments remained down-beat even after Reserve Bank retained the real GDP growth projection at 9.5 percent for 2021-22 as domestic economic activity has started normalizing with the ebbing of the second wave of the virus and the phased reopening of the economy. In the June monetary policy, the RBI had lowered the growth projection for 2021-22 to 9.5 percent from 10.5 percent estimated earlier. Both Sensex and Nifty are trading around 52,317 and 16,253 levels.
Asian markets were trading mostly in red on the global front despite broadly positive cues from Wall Street overnight. Focus shifted to key U.S. jobs data due later in the day after Fed Vice Chair Richard Clarida said conditions for an interest rate hike could be met in late 2022. European markets were trading mostly in red.
In Nifty 50 top gainers Indusind bank, Eicher Adani ports, IOC, Tata cons. prod and Bharti Airtel. The losers are Cipla, Reliance, Shree Cement, Ultratech, and Tata Steel.