Markets pare losses to turn red; ICICI Bank falls over 1%

Benchmark indices pared early morning gains to trade in negative during the afternoon deals and were set to post small weekly gains after exit polls showed BJP ahead of rivals in all the five states.

 

Victory for BJP in Uttar Pradesh will boost PM Narendra Modi’s chances of winning the 2019 general election. It would also give the party more number of legislators in the Rajya Sabha where it doesn't have a majority, improving the government's chances of passing key reform bills.

 

At 2:43 pm, the 30-share Sensex fell 18 points at 28,911, while the 50-share Nifty was ruling at 8,920,  down 6 points.

 

In the broader market, the BSE Midcap fell 0.2%, while BSE Smallcap gained 0.02%.

 

The market breadth narrowed as 1,253 shares had advanced, 1,159 shares had declined, while 171 shares remained unchanged.

 

Infosys, Bharti Airtel, L&T and HeroMoto Corp were the top gainers on BSE Sensex, while Power Grid, ICICI Bank, ONGC and ITC were the draggers.

 

IT stocks rose after losing for two sessions, with Infosys and TCS climbing 1% each.

 

Bajaj Electricals rallied 8.5% to Rs 306, also its fresh 52-week high on BSE on back of heavy volumes. The stock of household appliances maker outperformed the market by gaining 19% in one week as compared to 0.42% rise in the S&P BSE Sensex. In past one month, post October-December quarter (Q3FY17), the stock rallied 22% against 2% gain in benchmark index.

 

Edelweiss Financial Services moved higher by 4.5% to Rs 140, bouncing back 10% from its early morning low of Rs 127, after a more than 8% of total equity capital of the company exchanged hands via multiple block deals on BSE.

 

Investors were also aggressively applying to the initial public offering (IPO) of Avenue Supermarts, the operator of supermarket retail chain D-Mart. According to data available on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the issue has been oversubscribed 11 times as of 11: 15 am on Friday—the closing day of the issue. It received bids worth for 48.31 crore shares against the total issue size of 4.43 crore shares.

 

Meanwhile, Asian stocks edged up and the dollar rose to seven-week highs versus the yen on Friday, ahead of the closely-watched US non-farm payrolls report due later in the day.

 

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan added 0.3%, taking cues from a modest bounce in Wall Street overnight.

 

Japan's Nikkei climbed 1.5% on the back of a weaker yen.

 

(With inputs from agencies)