Market Opening Bell: Indices open in the red; NIFTY50 tests 25K, SENSEX down 200 points; Bharti Airtel, IndusInd Bank top losers

A day after a strong rally, the Indian equity market opened lower on Friday, March 16, following many of its Asian peers.

At 9:20AM, the S&P BSE SENSEX fell 224.31 points, or 0.27%, at the 82,306.43 level, while NSE’s NIFTY50 was at the 25,012.35 level, declining 49.75 points, or 0.20%.

The broader market, however, remained positive during the opening session. The Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 indices both advanced 0.46% and 0.92%, respectively.

Among sectors, IT, pharma and banking were under pressure. Consumer durables and realty were among the top gainers.

The exchange data showed that foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought equities worth ₹5,392.94 crore on a net basis on Thursday.

Globally, the Asian markets were mostly trading in red on Friday morning after the Japanese economy shrank by 0.2% in the previous quarter.

The Nikkei 225 was down 0.22% to 37,670.98, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng declined 0.67%. South Korea's KOSPI, on the other hand, gained 0.14% to the 2,624.83 level. The Shanghai Composite was trading 0.52% lower at the 3,363.32 level.

The US markets closed mixed on Thursday as tech stocks witnessed selling pressure at higher levels. Softer-than-expected inflation prints and easing trade war tensions continue to remain the key triggers for the US markets.

The S&P 500 gained 0.41% to end at 5,916.93 points, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.65% to 42,322.75 points. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq declined 0.18% to 19,112.32 points.

As many as 2,430 stocks traded on the NSE during the early session, among which 1,879 stocks were trading in the green, 488 in the red and 63 shares remained unchanged.

This indicated that the market breadth was in favour of positive.

Meanwhile, 33 stocks hit their one-year highs in the early trade, while only 3 stocks touched their 52-week lows.

Further, 79 stocks hit their upper circuits, while 9 hit their lower circuits.

India VIX, the volatility gauge, was trading 0.51% up at 16.98 levels.

In the early session, 32 stocks advanced on the NIFTY50 index while 18 were trading in red.

Bharti Airtel was among the top losers on the index, declining 2.57%. IndusInd Bank (-1.49%), HCL Technologies (-0.87%), Infosys (-0.77%) and Mahindra and Mahindra (-0.64%) were the other biggest laggards.

On the flip side, Bharat Electronics, Eternal, Eicher Motors, NTPC and Adani Enterprises were the top gaining stocks on the 50-share index.