Opening Bell: Sensex opens slightly lower at 57,498.96, Nifty at 16,947.70

On Thursday Sensex opened slightly lower at 57,498.96 down by 56.94 points whereas Nifty was at 16,947.70 down by 24.45 points.

HCL Tech, Tata Motors, Adani Ports were in positive whereas ICICI Bank, Maruti, Hindalco and NTPC were in the losers.

F&O ban list

NSE has retained GNFC and Indiabulls Housing Finance in its F&O ban list for Thursday.

Markets on Wednesday

The Indian equity markets after opening in positive ended in red on Wednesday. Sensex was at 57,555.90, down by 344.29 and Nifty slumped 71.10 points at 16,972.20. The positive start was due to cooling US inflation and positive global markets. On Wednesday the PSU Bank index fell by 1.2 per cent whereas Nifty Bank index was down 0.9 per cent.

Rupee

Indian rupee opened at 82.73 per dollar, down by 13 paise against close of 82.60.

Global markets

US stocks on Wednesday were in red with Dow Jones shedding 280.83 points to 31,874.57 and the S&P 500 fell 27.36 points to 3,891.93, whereas Nasdaq Composite was at 11,434.05. Asian stocks on Thursday also went down amid fear of a banking crisis and fresh troubles due to Credit Suisse. Nikkei 225 index was at 26,779.68 down by 1.65 per cent and Topic index fell by 31.21 points to 1,928.91, whereas Nifty futures on the Singapore Exchange was down at 16,972.50.

Oil prices

Oil prices on Wednesday went down by close to 5 per cent to settle at the lowest levels in the last year with the increasing fear that the banking sector could trigger a recession on Wednesday. Brent crude went up 1.2 per cent to $74.54 a barrel. The US West Texas Intermediate crude rose by 1.1 per cent at $68.35 a barrel.