Sensex, Nifty Tad Lower In Early Trade; Mahindra & Mahindra Shares Rally 7%

(RTTNews) - Indian shares opened a tad lower on Friday after three Federal Reserve officials argued in favor of keeping borrowing costs high until there's more evidence of easing inflation.

The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex was down 105 points, or 0.2 percent, at 73,554 while the broader NSE Nifty index was down 36 points, or 0.2 percent, at 22,367.

Nestle India, Cipla, Britannia Industries, SBI Life and Adani Ports all fell around 1 percent in the Nifty pack while Mahindra & Mahindra soared 7 percent after posting better-than-expected Q4 results.

Tata Motors and Grasim were up more than 1 percent each.

Vodafone Idea was little changed despite widening its Q4 net loss.

GAIL (India) rose 1.4 percent on news it has hired a new liquified natural gas carrier for 14 years to ship cargo from the U.S.

Biocon edged down slightly after reporting a 57 percent fall in fourth quarter consolidated net profit.

Container Corporation of India tumbled 3.2 percent on reporting muted growth in its quarterly profit.

Vedanta added 1 percent on fund raising reports.