Markets continued to trade lower in afternoon trades this Friday on back of selling pressure witnessed in index stocks such as Bharti Airtel and Bharat Heavy Electricals after below estimate Oct-Dec results.
At 2:10PM, the Bombay Stock Exchange's 30-share index Sensex fell 86 points and traded at 19,809 while the National Stock Exchange's 50-share Nifty declined 27 points at 6,007
In the results calendar, Adani Enterprises, Jet Airways, Karur Vysya Bank, MCX and TVS Motor are scheduled to announce third-quarter results later today while Bank of Baroda, JK Cement, TajGVK Hotels, United Spirits, Rural Electrification Corp on Monday.
Asian shares traded mixed on back of modest recovery seen in China, however, caution remained ahead of U.S. non-farm payrolls report later today, which will likely show a rise of 160,000 jobs and the jobless rate staying steady at 7.8 percent.
In China, two separate surveys of China's purchasing managers' index (PMI) showed that factory output in the world's second-biggest economy rose in January, but the pace of the revival in activity was uneven.
China's official PMI logged a reading of 50.4, easing from December's 50.6 and below forecasts for a nine-month high of 50.9. A separate private sector PMI released by HSBC, however, rose to a two-year high of 52.3.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.03% to 23,721, Taiwan's Weighted index rose 0.08% to 7,855, Singapore's Straits Times inched up 0.12% to 3,286 while China's Shanghai Composite gained 1.4% to 2,419 and Japan's Nikkei rose 0.5% to 11,191.
European shares traded positive in opening deals. France's CAC 0.27% to 3,742, Germany's DAX gained 0.37% to 7,804 while UK's FTSE was up 0.55% to 6,311.
Back home, consumer durables, healthcare, oil & gas, power sectors rose while real-estate, banks, IT, capital goods, technology sectors, declined on BSE.
Among key Sensex stocks, Maruti Suzuki gained 2%, Cipla & Dr Reddy's rose 15, Bajaj Auto rose 1.3%, Reliance Industries was up 0.6% ,Sun Pharma gained 0.5% on BSE.
Among losers, BHEL declined 2%, Sterlite Industries and Hindalco dropped 0.5% and 1.5% respectively , HUL dropped 1.4%, Bharti Airtel fell 1.5%, ICICI and SBI Bank shed 1% and 0.3% , Larsen & Toubro shed 0.2% on BSE.
The other key notable movers include, Bharti Airtel that slipped 2% after posting disappointing set of numbers. Profit at Bharti Airtel Ltd, India's top mobile network operator, fell for the twelfth quarter in a row and missed estimates by a wide margin dragged down by higher costs. The company saw its net profit fall to Rs 284 crore in the third quarter that ended December 31, from Rs 1,011 crore a year earlier.
The auction of Oil India (OIL) share saw good response from investors today with bids coming in for over 2.40 crore shares in the first three hours of trade.
The government is offloading 6.01 crore shares or 10% stake in OIL and has fixed a floor price of Rs 510 a share. The stake sale would fetch Rs 3,065 crore to the exchequer. Shares of OIL fell by 1.2% at Rs 53.502 apiece on the BSE
Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd, India's top power equipment maker, missed analyst estimates with a 17.5% fall in third-quarter net profit, hit by a slowdown in new orders, sending its shares down more than 4%.
The broader markets were tad up with mid-caps and small-caps inching up 0.1% on BSE.
The market breadth was negative. Out of 2,790 stocks traded, 1,381 stocks declined compared to 1,271 gained on BSE.
