The markets on Friday morning opened lower with Sensex at 64,918.55, down by 232.47 points and Nifty was at 19,297.70 with a loss of 67.55 points. NTPC, L&T, Bharti Airtel and Sun Pharma were the top gainers in the morning session, whereas TCS, Wipro, HCL Tech, Tech Mahindra and Bajaj Finance were among the losers.
Markets on Thursday
The benchmark indices ended on a negative note on Thursday. The Sensex fell 388.40 points to end the day at 65,151.02 and the Nifty was at 19,365.25, down by 99.75 points. Nifty Bank slipped 55.05 points to close at 43,891.35.
Global markets
US markets closed lower on Thursday amid fear of interest rate continuing to remain high for a longer period. The healthcare stocks saw a drop after news that Blue Shield of California plans to cut reliance on CVS Health as its pharmacy benefit manager. While the shares of CVS Health shed 8 per cent, other health insurers like UnitedHealth and Cigna dropped 1.9 per cent and 6.4 per cent respectively.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 290.91 point at 34,474.83, the S&P 500 closed 33.97 point lower at 4,370.36 and Nasdaq Composite fell 143.75 point at 13,330.88. In the last three sessions S&P 500 has seen a drop of 2.7 per cent which is its deepest three-session drop since mid-March and Nasdaq slipped 3.4 per cent to mark its deepest three session drop since February.
The Asian stock markets continued a downward trend on Friday with South Korea's KOSPI losing 2.28 points at 2,517.57, Japan's Nikkei 225 shed 11.87 points at 31,614.13 after its core inflation fell to 3.1 per cent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 81.55 points at 18,245.08. However, GIFT Nifty exchange gained 27 points to trade at 19,310.
Oil prices
Oil prices continued to fall on Friday morning breaking its 7-week winning streak amid fears of slow economic growth in China and the possibility of further interest rate hike in the US impacting demand. Brent crude futures for October were flat at $84.12 per barrel and US West Texas Intermediate crude fell to $80.49 per barrel, down by 10 cents.
Rupee
The Indian rupee opened higher on Friday morning at 83.02 per dollar against Thursday's close of 83.15.
