The indices opened flat on Friday. At 09:16 IST, the Sensex was up 1.27 points or 0.00 percent%\ at 48692.07, and the Nifty was up 13.70 points or 0.09 percent at 14710.20. The Nifty Metal index slipped 2 percent dragged by the NMDC, Jindal Steel, Adani Enterprises
Asian Paints, Titan Company, State Bank of India (SBI), ITC, Bharti Airtel, ICICI Bank, Nestle India, Dr Reddy's Laboratories, were among top BSE Sensex gainers.
M&M was the top loser in the Sensex pack, shedding over 2 percent, followed by ONGC, Bajaj Auto, Maruti, TCS, HDFC duo and Bajaj Finance.
On Wednesday, Sensex slumped 471.01 points or 0.96 percent to finish at 48,690.80, and Nifty tumbled 154.25 points or 1.04 percent to 14,696.50.
Asian Paints posts 81.13% jump in net profit
Asian Paints Ltd on Wednesday reported an 81.13 percent jump in its consolidated net profit to Rs 869.89 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2021, helped by volume growth in the domestic as well as in the international market.
The company had posted a net profit of Rs 480.25 crore during the January-March quarter of the previous fiscal, Asian Paints said in a regulatory filing.
Its revenue from operations was up 43.49 percent at Rs 6,651.43 crore during the quarter under review as against Rs 4,635.59 crore in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.
Commenting on the results, Asian Paints Managing Director & CEO Amit Syngle said: "We have seen a very strong quarter aided by good demand across rural and urban areas at the country level."
FIIs net sellers
Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net sellers in the capital market as they offloaded shares worth Rs 1,260.59 crore, according to provisional exchange data.
The domestic stock market was closed on Thursday for Id-Ul-Fitr.
"Worse-than-expected inflation data from US (4.2 per cent in April YoY) led to sell-off in US markets with Dow, S&P and Nasdaq declining sharply by up to 2.7 per cent on Wednesday," said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services to PTI.
The US 10-year yield rose above 1.69 per cent. But this victory for the bond bears proved to be short-lived as equity bulls came roaring back on Thursday, he noted.
"The market verdict, as of now, is that the high inflation print is transitory and, therefore, the Fed will continue on the ultra-loose monetary stance and the tapering of quantitative easing (QE) is far away. This is positive for markets globally.
"Back home, COVID data continues to be grim and the consequent extensions of lockdowns in many states mean growth and earnings in Q1 FY22 will be lower than initial estimates," he added.
Oil prices fall
Oil prices fell about 3 percent as India's coronavirus crisis deepened and a key US fuel pipeline resumed operations, reported Reuters.
Brent crude ended the session down $2.27, or 3.3 percent, at $67.05 a barrel, after rising 1 percent on Wednesday. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) settled $2.26, or 3.4 percent lower at $63.82 a barrel.
Fuel prices at record high
Maintaining its rising trend, petrol and diesel prices on Friday were hiked after a gap of a day. Petrol price was hiked by a steep 29 paise per litre and diesel by 34 paise a litre, according to a price notification by state-owned fuel retailers.
After today’s hike, petrol prices in Delhi rose to Rs 92.34 per litre against Rs 92.05 on Thursday, while diesel price soared to Rs 82.95 per litre as compared to Rs 82.61 a litre on Thursday.
Rates have been increased across the country and differ from state to state depending on the incidence of value-added tax.
