Benchmarks come off day's low

The market came off early lows in morning trade. At 10:25 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was down 309.64 points or 0.89% at 34,469.94. The Nifty 50 index was down 108 points or 1.03% at 10,345.05. Selling in index heavyweight Reliance Industries (RIL) put pressure on bourses.

Among secondary barometers, the BSE Mid-Cap index was down 0.64%. The BSE Small-Cap index was down 1.02%.

The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was weak. On BSE, 689 shares rose and 1217 shares fell. A total of 89 shares were unchanged.

RIL was down 4.69%. The company's consolidated net profit rose 17.93% to Rs 9549 crore on 54.11% rise in total income to Rs 144574 crore in Q2 September 2018 over Q2 September 2017. The result was announced after market hours on Wednesday, 17 October 2018.

Metal shares were mixed. Hindustan Zinc (up 2.77%), Steel Authority of India (up 1.61%), JSW Steel (up 1.55%), Tata Steel (up 0.45%), National Aluminium Company (up 0.15%) and Hindalco Industries (up 0.11%), edged higher. Vedanta (down 0.91%), NMDC (down 0.99%), Jindal Steel & Power (down 2.37%) and Hindustan Copper (down 2.58%), edged lower.

Auto stocks declined. Hero MotoCorp (down 2.9%), Escorts (down 2.83%), TVS Motor Company (down 2.01%), Mahindra & Mahindra (down 1.72%), Eicher Motors (down 1.46%), Tata Motors (down 0.95%), Bajaj Auto (down 0.71%) and Maruti Suzuki India (down 0.06%), edged lower. Ashok Leyland was down 0.17%.

Overseas, stocks in Asia fell on Friday after China's GDP growth for the third quarter of 2018 came in below expectations. Issues ranging from trade worries, Italy's 2019 budget and higher US interest rates also worried investors.

China's economic growth slowed to the weakest pace since the first quarter of 2009 as the country's trade war with the US puts pressure on growth, according to official data released on Friday. The world's second-largest economy said its economy grew 6.5% year-over-year in the third quarter of 2018. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, China's economy grew 1.6%, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

US stocks closed sharply lower Thursday, dogged by worries about global growth and as investors continued to weigh minutes of the Federal Reserve's September meeting, which were viewed as hawkish.

The minutes of the Fed's September meeting, released on Wednesday, indicated that policy makers are prepared to forge ahead with increases and will likely hike rates again as early as December, as expected.

On the data front, first-time jobless claims fell by 5,000 from a week ago, as the Labor Department reported just 210,000 Americans applying for initial jobless benefits in the week ending 13 October 2018, close to 49-year lows.

The Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index came in slightly below last month's reading, with a print of 22.2 in October, compared with 22.9 in September. The Conference Board said its leading economic indicators rose 0.5% in September.

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