Sensex, Nifty slip in opening trade; Shriram Finance, Brightcom Group & Raymond tank up to 7%

Indian equity benchmarks traded slightly lower in opening deals on Friday, dragged by financials, banks and consumer stocks. The 30-share BSE Sensex pack fell 55 points or 0.09 per cent to trade at 60,595, while the broader NSE Nifty moved 7 points or 0.04 per cent down to trade at 17,909. On the global front, most Asian shares traded higher tracking an overnight rise in the US stock markets.

Back home, mid- and small-cap shares were positive as Nifty Midcap 100 rose 0.46 per cent and small-cap moved 0.67 per cent higher.

"Since the Nifty has moved up by 5 per cent in the April series, some profit booking can happen in the near term. An important sectoral trend in the market is that while large-cap IT has been performing poorly, mid-cap is doing well and some of them have given optimistic guidance for FY24. Stay invested in mid-cap IT. Long-term investors can utilise weakness in large-cap IT to accumulate these stocks. Banking stocks will remain resilient," said VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) extended their buying streak for the second session and added equities worth Rs 1,653 crore on Thursday.

Seven out of the 15 sector gauges -- compiled by the National Stock Exchange -- were trading in the red. Sub-indexes Nifty Financial Services, Nifty Bank, Nifty FMCG and Nifty Consumer Durables were underperforming the NSE platform by falling as much as 0.43 per cent, 0.25 per cent, 0.37 per cent and 0.61 per cent, respectively.

On the stock-specific front, Bajaj Finserv was the top Nifty loser as the stock cracked 2.61 per cent to trade at Rs 1,324.45. Axis Bank, Hindustan Unilever, Asian Paints and ONGC fell up to 1.86 per cent.

In contrast, Wipro, Apollo Hospitals, UPL, Hero MotoCorp and HCL Tech climbed up to 3.19 per cent.

The overall market breadth was strong as 1,956 shares were advancing while 852 were declining on BSE.

On the 30-share BSE index, Axis Bank, HUL, ICICI Bank, Bajaj Finserv, Bajaj Finance, Asian Paints, HDFC twins (HDFC and HDFC Bank), ITC and Kotak Mahindra Bank were among the top laggards.

In addition, Shriram Finance, Brightcom Group, Raymond tanked up to 6.67 per cent.

On the flip side, Reliance Industries, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Bharti Airtel and SBI were trading in the green.

Sensex had jumped 349 points, or 0.58 per cent, to settle at 60,649 yesterday, while Nifty had climbed 101 points, or 0.57 per cent, to close at 17,915.  

Nifty outlook

"The abundance of bullish continuation patterns had encouraged us to set aside collapse fears so far, and even raise our upside expectations from 17,976 to 18,300 yesterday. As we are at the upper extremity of a broadening declining wedge that has held prices throughout the year so far, the pace and breadth of moves are likely to change. We will begin this phase, by spotlighting 18,110 as a point of vulnerability, which may be acted upon only if the subsequent turn lower extends beyond 17,880. Else, expect the Nifty to head into the 18,200-18,300 region or even 18,600," said Anand James, Chief Market Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

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