Top stock tips by Shrikant Chouhan, Mitessh Thakkar: Hindustan Unilever, Tata Motors, CIL and more

Indian equity benchmarks gave up initial gains in a choppy session on Friday. The Sensex fell as much as 436 points from its intraday high to hit 58,321.1 on the downside, and the Nifty50 benchmark dropped to as low as 17,362.2, having climbed to as high as 17,489.8 earlier on Friday. Gains in IT shares were offset by losses in consumer and select financial stocks.

Equities across most other Asian markets fell amid concerns about the Omicron variant of COVID-19, with MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares down 0.7 percent in early hours. Japan's Nikkei 225 was down 0.1 percent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng down one percent.

China's Shanghai Composite was up 0.3 percent, Singapore's Straits Times up 0.1 percent and South Korea's KOSPI up 0.3 percent.

S&P 500 futures were down half a percent in Asian trade. On Thursday, the three main Wall Street indices closed 0.8-1.8 percent higher.