Key equity indices were hovering near day's low in mid-morning trade. At 11:30 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was down 327.83 points or 0.94% at 34,451.75. The Nifty 50 index was down 119.20 points or 1.14% at 10,333.85. Selling in IT shares and weakness in index heavyweight Reliance Industries (RIL) put pressure on bourses.
The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was weak. On BSE, 614 shares rose and 1568 shares fell. A total of 109 shares were unchanged.
IT shares fell across the board. MindTree (down 14.72%), MphasiS (down 4.84%), Hexaware Technologies (down 4.43%), HCL Technologies (down 3.4%), Tech Mahindra (down 2.89%), Infosys (down 2.86%), Oracle Financial Services Software (down 1.54%), Persistent Systems (down 1.3%), Wipro (down 0.9%) and TCS (down 0.77%), edged lower.
Most pharmaceutical shares declined. Piramal Enterprises (down 6.14%), Strides Shasun (down 2.73%), GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals (down 2.14%), Aurobindo Pharma (down 1.69%), Cipla (down 1.67%), IPCA Laboratories (down 1.6%), Alkem Laboratories (down 1.57%), Glenmark Pharmaceuticals (down 0.92%), Wockhardt (down 0.64%), Dr Reddy's Laboratories (down 0.6%) and Lupin (down 0.27%), edged lower. Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (up 1.27%) and Divi's Laboratories (up 1.56%), edged higher.
Cadila Healthcare was down 2.16%. Zydus Cadila received the tentative approval from the USFDA to market Colchicine Tablets USP (US RLD Colcyrs), 0.6 mg. It will be manufactured at the group's formulations manufacturing facility at SEZ, Ahmedabad. This medication is used to prevent or treat attacks of gout (also called gouty arthritis). This medication is also used to prevent attacks of pain in the abdomen, chest or joints caused by a genetic autoinflammatory disease (called as familial Mediterranean fever).
Overseas, stocks in Asia were mixed on Friday after China's GDP growth for the third quarter of 2018 came in below expectations. Issues ranging from trade worries, Italy's 2019 budget and higher US interest rates also worried investors.
China's economic growth slowed to the weakest pace since the first quarter of 2009 as the country's trade war with the US puts pressure on growth, according to official data released on Friday. The world's second-largest economy said its economy grew 6.5% year-over-year in the third quarter of 2018. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, China's economy grew 1.6%, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
US stocks closed sharply lower Thursday, dogged by worries about global growth and as investors continued to weigh minutes of the Federal Reserve's September meeting, which were viewed as hawkish.
The minutes of the Fed's September meeting, released on Wednesday, indicated that policy makers are prepared to forge ahead with increases and will likely hike rates again as early as December, as expected.
On the data front, first-time jobless claims fell by 5,000 from a week ago, as the Labor Department reported just 210,000 Americans applying for initial jobless benefits in the week ending 13 October 2018, close to 49-year lows.
The Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index came in slightly below last month's reading, with a print of 22.2 in October, compared with 22.9 in September. The Conference Board said its leading economic indicators rose 0.5% in September.
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