Market trends to negative, banking and financials major drag

New Delhi: Markets opened flat to negative on Friday led by losses in banking and financial stocks.

The BSE Sensex was trading 3.36 points higher at 37,107.64 while the NSE Nifty was up by 3.60 points to 10,979.20 in early trade.

Major losers in the Sensex pack were Yes Bank, SBI, L&T, IndusInd Bank, NTPC, Bharti Airtel, HDFC Bank, Tata Steel, HDFC, Asian Paint, Tata Motors and Axis Bank, falling upto 4.56 percent. On the other hand shares of Infosys, Maruti, TCS, M&M, Kotak Bank, Bajaj Auto, Tech Mahindra, Heromoto Corp, Bajaj Finance, ITC, HCL Tech and ICICI Bank were major gainers, rising upto 1.11 percent.

Government released the key macro-economic data on Thursday showing that India’s industrial output rose 4.3 percent in July, as against 2 percent in June. The country’s IIP stood at 6.5 in the same period last year. Meanwhile the country’s retail inflation stood at 3.21 percent in August as against 3.15 percent last month and 3.69 in the same period last year.

In the previous session on Thursday markets snapped its 5-day rally with the BSE Sensex falilng 166.54 points or 0.45 percent to close at 37,104.28 while the NSE Nifty dropped 52.90 points or 0.48 percent to 10,982.80.

MSCI`s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan ticked up 0.3 percent though mainland China and South Korea were closed for public holidays. Japan`s Nikkei rose 1.0 percent to four-month highs. The U.S. S&P 500 closed within striking distance of its all-time closing high, rising 0.29 percent to 3,009.57, near record closing high of 3,024.50 marked in late July, a Reuters report said.

With Agency Inputs