Markets open flat ahead of US jobs report

Markets opened flat a with negative bias this Friday asinvestors traded cautiously ahead of US jobs report later today amid speculation that improvement in the U.S. economy will lead the Federal Reserve to scale back stimulus.

At 9:20AM, the Bombay Stock Exchange's 30-share index Sensex fell 40 points to end at 19,484 while the National Stock Exchange's 50-share was down 17 points at 5,904.  

A Labor Department report today is expected to indicate employers added 163,000 to non-farm payrolls last month, almost equal to the gain in April, Bloomberg report suggested.

Asian shares traded lower with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng declining 1% to 21,622, China’s Shanghai Composite declined 0.04% to 2,233, Singapore’s Straits Times fell 0.2% to 3,187 while Japan’s Nikkei slumped 1.3% to 12,732 today.

Back home, oil & gas, IT, healthcare, power indexes gained while metal, consumer durables, capital goods, auto and banking sectors lead the declines on the BSE.

The gainers on the Sensex included Tata Power gaining 0.7%, Wipor rose 0.5%, GAIL was up 0.4%, Hero MotoCorp up 0.5% on the BSE.

The laggards were Maruti Suzuki  falling over 1.5% , Bharti Airtel declined 0.8%, Coal India dropped 0.5% while SBI fell 0.6% on the BSE.

The broader markets opened higher with mid-caps and small-caps gaining nearly 0.2% on the BSE.

The market breadth was positive. Out of 610 stocks traded, 359 stocks advanced compared to 221 declines on the BSE.