FIRST TRADE: Sensex slips 200 pts, BSE IT index slips 0.5%; Landmark Cars up 5%

Stock market today: The domestic market opened on a negative note on Friday amid across-the-board selling. The S&P BSE Sensex traded around 200 points, or 0.31 per cent lower at 63,043.93 levels while the NSE's Nifty was trading at 18,705.85, down 65.4 points, or 0.35 per cent. The S&P BSE IT index was trading 0.55 per cent lower at the time of writing this report as Accenture fanned concerns about dwindling IT spending on Thursday with a quarterly revenue forecast that was below Wall Street estimates.

Among individual stocks, Landmark Cars traded 5 per cent higher at Rs 696.25 on the BSE after multiple block deals. Sterling and Wilson's stock was also trading in the green after multiple block deals. 

"Markets could be volatile in early Friday trades in view of sideways movement in the SGX Nifty after US gauges ended mixed and key Asian indices are struggling amid mounting Chinese growth fears. Back home, while fundamentals have remained sound so far, the monsoon playing truant will keep investors on edge, as any bad news on the monsoon front could trigger a sell-off in the near to medium term. On the other hand, benchmarks have caught fire in the last few months, and Nifty’s resilience is a strong reason to believe that bulls still have room to run and the benchmark index could still recapture its all-time-high of 18,888 despite headwinds," said Prashanth Tapse, Senior VP (Research), Mehta Equities Ltd.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE MidCap index slipped 0.71 per cent to 28,127 levels while the S&P BSE SmallCap index traded 0.87 per cent lower at 32,089.64 points.