The markets on Friday morning were trading flat with Sensex at 62,995.93, down by 78.30 points and Nifty was at 18,720.95 with a loss of 32.85 points. Titan, Axis Bank, Tata Steel, HCL Tech and UltraTech Cement were the top gainers in the morning session, whereas Bajaj Finserv, Wipro, Bharti Airtel and TCS were among the losers.
India's trade deficit for May jumped to a five month high of $22.1 billion against $15.2 billion in April.
Markets on Thursday
Sensex closes at 62,917.63, down by 310.08 and Nifty at 18,774.45 with a loss of 75.05 points. Among sectors, the bank and realty index fell 1 per cent each, whereas IT index was down 0.5 per cent. However, pharma index went up 1 per cent and FMCG index was up 0.5 per cent.
Global markets
With investors cheering the pause in rate hike and the possibilities that the Federal Reserve has reached the end of its rate hike cycle, US stocks on Wednesday continued to gain with S&P 500 and Nasdaq close to their highest in 14 months. Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.26 per cent to 34,408.06, the S&P 500 rose by 1.22 per cent at 4,425.84 and Nasdaq closed at 13,782.82 up by 1.15 per cent.
The Asian stock markets on Friday taking cues from the US markets were higher with Singapore's SGX Nifty was up by 41 points at 18,801, Hong Kong's Hang Seng was at 19,972.43 with a jump of 143.51 points and South Korea's KOSPI was at 2,614.87 with a gain of 6.33 points. However, Japan's Nikkei 225 saw a drop of 191.20 points at 33,294.29.
Oil prices
Oil prices on Friday morning traded lower after futures gained steeply due to hopes of higher energy demand from China. Brent crude futures were down 13 cents at $75.54 per barrel and US West Texas Intermediate crude was at $70.52 per barrel with a loss of 10 cents.
Rupee
Indian rupee opened higher on Friday at 81.96 per dollar against Thursday's close of 82.18.
