The Indian equity benchmarks edged lower in trade on Friday dragged by losses in heavyweight stocks like HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Reliance Industries, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Larsen - Toubro.
The Sensex fell as much as 246 points and Nifty 50 index fell close to its important psychological level of 14,800.As of 9:24 am, the Sensex was down 207 points at 49,538 and Nifty was down 60 points at 14,813.Eight of 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher led by the Nifty FMCG index's over 1 per cent gain.
Nifty PSU Bank, Pharma, Metal and Realty sector gauges were also trading with a positive bias.On the flipside, Nifty Bank, Private Bank and Financial Services indexes were down around 1 per cent each.Mid- and small-cap shares were witnessing buying interest as Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 indices rose around 0.4 per cent.Bajaj Finance was top Nifty loser, the stock fell 1.73 per cent to Rs 4,942.
Larsen - Toubro, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, IndusInd Bank, Asian Paints, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, Indian Oil, Divi's Labs, SBI Life and Bharat Petroleum also declined 0.75-1.2 per cent.On the flipside, Tata Motors, Hindustan Unilever, Adani Ports, Sun Pharma, ITC, Grasim Industries, Power Grid, ONGC and JSW Steel were among the gainers.The overall market breadth was positive as 1,321 shares were advancing while 719 were declining on the BSE.