NEW DELHI: Domestic equity benchmarks extended losses to the second consecutive session on Friday as concerns over weak macro, lacklustre Asian cues and uninspiring September quarter earnings continued to weigh on the sentiment.
An official data released on Thursday showed that the fiscal deficit of the country has widened in the first half of 2018-19 to 95.3 per cent of the Budget Estimate (BE), mainly on account of slow growth in revenue collections. The deficit was at 91.3 per cent of BE at September-end of the last financial year.
Weak Asian peers also kept the mood subdued at home. Asian shares slipped again on Friday morning, deepening this week's markets rout, after disappointing results from Alphabet and Amazon heightened concerns over the outlook for US corporate earnings, global trade and economic growth, Reuters reported.
Domestic currency
rupee today opened 16 paise down at 73.43 against the US dollar following steady capital outflows and weakness in domestic equities amid rising geopolitical tensions.
The BSE
Sensex was 300 points, or 0.89 per cent 33,389.9 down at , while Nifty50 was 111 points, or 0.98 per cent per cent down at 10,013.
The BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices fell up to 0.61 per cent in early trade, in sync with benchmark Sensex.
In the Sensex index, only five stocks-
Tata Motors, Adani Ports, Sun Pharma,
Hero MotoCorp and Tata Steel - were in the green at that time.
YES Bank, NTPC, Asian Paints, Bharti Airtel and Vedanta were among the top losers in the Sensex kitty of stocks.
All sectoral indices on the BSE were incurring losses, with metal, power, realty and utilities declining over 1 per cent.
JSW Steel, Hindalco, Vedanta, Indiabulls Real Estate, Oberoi Realty and DLF were keeping the metal and realty pack down.
From the power sector, NTPC,
Suzlon, Reliance Infra and
Adani Power were among the top losers.