Indian shares opened flat on Wednesday amid cautious trades in global markets and rising crude oil prices. Asian stocks also got off to a cautious start, holding close to six-month highs on hopes the US Federal Reserve will stick to a dovish stance.
At 9:20 am, the S&P BSE Sensex was trading at 38,372, up 9 points, while the broader NSE Nifty50 was ruling at 11,534, up 2 points. Meanwhile, broader markets mildly outperformed benchmark indices with Nifty MidCap and Nifty Smallcap gaining 0.2 percent each.
Hindalco, Infosys, Bharti Infratel, Wipro and Vedanta were top gainers on Nifty50 while IOC, ZEE, Bajaj Auto, BPCL and HPCL fell the most on the index.
All sectoral indices, except Nifty IT and Nifty Realty, were trading in the negative territory. The Nifty Media fell the most followed by Nifty Bank and Nifty Auto.
The Nifty IT index rose nearly 1 percent in early morning deals on weaker rupee led by Wipro, Infosys, Tata Elxsi, Tech Mahindra and NIIT Tech.
The Nifty Bank consolidated gains with Kotak Bank, IndusInd Bank, SBI, ICICI Bank and Federal Bank dragging the index lower.
Oil marketing companies also fell, with IOC, BPCL, and HPCL declining over 2 percent each on rising crude oil prices.
Globally, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan ticked down 0.1 percent from a six-month high touched the previous day. Japan’s Nikkei was also down 0.1 percent.
Wall Street shares were narrowly mixed on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 losing 0.01 percent and the Nasdaq adding 0.12 percent.
(WIth Reuters Inputs)
