Information technology stocks continued to witness selling pressure for second straight day
The domestic stock markets have opened flat, continuing with the consolidation seen in the past two trading sessions, due to profit-booking at higher levels. Weakness on Wall Street overnight also seem to have had its effect on the domestic markets. At 9:35 am, the BSE Sensex was trading at 49,392.79, lower by 198 points or 0.38 per cent and NSE Nifty was at 14,539.35, down 61.35 points or 0.40 per cent. But the broader markets were outperforming their largecap peers; the BSE Midcap index gained 19187, up 0.3 per cent and the BSE Smallcap index added 0.2 per cent at 18,936.
Wall Street had closed lower on Thursday after making a u-turn toward the end of the session as reports emerged about U.S. President-elect Joe Biden's pandemic aid proposal following earlier data that showed a weakening labor market.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 68.95 points, or 0.22 per cent at 30,991.52, while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 16.31 points, or 0.12 per cent, to 13,112.64.
Asian shares, however, rose on Friday, brushing off a late Wall Street dip as expectations of large U.S. stimulus under President-elect Joe Biden shored up sentiment and oil prices perked up on upbeat Chinese trade figures.
In Asia, investors held a broadly more optimistic with Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.2 per cent, Japan's Nikkei 225 added 0.3 per cent and South Korea's KOSPI inched higher by 0.2 per cent.
Bharti Airtel, UPl, Tata Steel and JSW Steel were the top gainers among Sensex stocks; the shares gained 0.9 per cent to 4.2 per cent each on the BSE.
Information technology stocks continued to witness selling pressure for the second straight day, with Infosys, TCS and HCL Tech losing up to 1 per cent each.
The BSE market breadth favoured the bulls, albeit by a small margin. Out of 2052 stocks traded on the BSE, there were 1,005 advancing stocks as against 960 declines.
