Sensex, Nifty Down Sharply As Stocks Fall For 2nd Straight Session

(RTTNews) - Despite positive cues from Wall Street and Asian markets, Indian shares are drifting lower on Friday after opening marginally down.

Index heavyweight Reliance Industries, and major bank stocks are among the prominent losers in early trades.

The benchmark BSE Sensex, which plunged to 59,390.80, is cyrrently down 681.31 points or 1.13% at 59,523.75. The National Stock Exchange's Nifty index is down 177.90 points or 0.99% at 17,714.05.

HDFC is down by about 3%. ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, State Bank of India and Axis Bank are down 2 to 2.8%, while Kotak Bank is lower by about 1.4% and IndusInd Bank is down nearly 1%.

Reliance Industries is down 1.8%, Asian Paints is declining 2.1%, Hindustan Unilever, Larsen & Toubro, Bharti Airtel and Maruti Suzuki are down 0.7 to 1.4%.

Adani Enterprises Limited shares are down more than 3%, losing ground for a second straight session. Shares of most of the Adani group firms have plunged sharply for the second successive day, weighed down by a report from Hindenburg Research levelling a series of exraordinary allegations about the conglomerate.

Tata Motors is up nearly 6.5%. The company eported consolidated net profit of Rs 2,958 crore for the October - December quarter, as against net loss of Rs 1,516 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

Bajaj Auto is up 6.3% after reporting a 23% increase in standalone net profit at Rs 1,491 crore for the quarter ended December 2022.

Dr. Reddy's Laboratories is gaining more than 3.5%. The pharma major said its net profit rose as much as 77% in the December quarter over the year-ago quarter.

Cipla is up 2.5%, ITC is gaining about 1.6%, and Divi's Laboratories is rising 1.3%.