Sensex, Nifty tumble on profit-booking, global cues

The Indian benchmark indices stretched its losses on Friday's trade after witnessing a trend reversal from a 2-year high at open to a lower close on Thursday's trade amid sustained profit-booking by investors after recent gains.

A weak trend in Asian markets following global cues also weighed on the trading sentiments at home.

Investors are watching out for US Fed Chair Janet Yellen's speech later in the day which could give hints of possible Fed rate hike later this month.

At 10 AM, the S&P BSE Sensex was trading at 28,749, down 90.20 points while the Nifty50 was trading at 8,869, down 30.45 points.

"We still believe that 8867 - 8820 levels on intraday charts are likely to act as a sheet anchor in the forthcoming session and hence, traders are advised not to get worried with this sharp down move," said an Angel Broking report.

Shares of Reliance Industries Ltd was the top performer gaining over 3 per cent on the BSE after the company said that it plans to shrink the number of firms owning shares of India's second-most valuable company through an internal sale to other holding companies.

Eight promoter group companies of RIL will acquire around 119 crore shares, from 15 other promoter group companies in an inter se transfer for Rs 1.3 lakh crore, promoters told the stock exchanges on Thursday.

Asian Paints, ITC and HDFC were laggards shedding over 1 per cent off the bourses.

Global Markets

Among the Asian markets, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was down 0.49 per cent while Japan's Nikkei shed 0.14 per cent in early trade today. Shanghai Composite Index was marginally down by 0.32 per cent.

The US Dow Jones fell 0.53 per cent yesterday.