Indian shares erased Thursday’s opening gains, dragged by banks and telecom stocks. Bank shares slipped amid reports that Vodafone Idea may seek insolvency if the government did not provide relief on the payment of additional spectrum fees and dues in the wake of the recent Supreme Court order vis-a-vis adjusted gross revenue.
Trade sentiment also remained cautious a day after the CPI inflation rose to a 16-month high to 4.62 percent, above the Reserve Bank of India’s comfort zone of 4 percent. However, core inflation for October falling to 3.5 percent has also raised hopes for more interest rate cuts by the RBI.
The BSE Sensex started 63 points higher, or 0.16 percent, to trade at 40,179 in initial trade. The NSE Nifty50 edged up over 18 points, or 0.15 percent, to 11,859. The Nifty MidCap 100 index gained 0.17 percent, while the Nifty Bank surged 0.24 percent.
At 9.40 am, the Sensex was down over 50 points trading slightly above the 40,050 mark, while the Nifty was holding the 11,800 level.
Among sectoral gainers, IT, finance, auto advanced marginally. Pharma, FMCG, metal and power declined among major sector indices.
Among gainers, Eicher Motors, Asian Paints, Infosys, ICICI Bank and Titan increased by up to a percent. Bharti Infratel, Bharti Airtel, IndusInd Bank, Tata Motors and Grasim declined between 1 and 6 percent.
Shares of Vodafone Idea tanked 15 percent while Bharti Airtel slipped over 3 percent respectively after the Department of Telecom issued a notice to the telecom operators to pay their revenue share dues.
In the currency markets, the Indian rupee opened at 72.07 per US dollar against Wednesday's close of 72.09 against the greenback.
In other Asian markets, shares sagged as Chinese economic data further pointed the trade war between Beijing and Washington hit growth in the world's second-largest economy.
China’s industrial production growth slowed sharply in October, rising 4.7 percent year-on-year, official data showed, missing forecasts of 5.4 percent, while retail sales also slowed to fall short of expectations and investment growth hit a record low.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan, which had drifted in to positive territory in morning trade, turned negative to trade 0.4 percent lower.
Japan's Nikkei stock index dropped 0.6 percent, while Shanghai blue chips turned from positive to flat.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell almost another percentage point on Thursday to a fresh one-month low.
-with inputs from agencies
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