Market update: Nifty, Sensex trade flat with negative bias; IT shares gain

The Indian domestic markets were trading flat with negative bias in the afternoon trade on Friday. The broader Nifty climbed back to trade above 18, 200, while the Sensex too recovered after suffering nearly 400 points loss in the early trade as the 30-share index was trading above 61, 000-mark. At 1pm, the Nifty was trading at 18,217.10, shedding 40.70 points or 0.22%, while the Sensex was trading lower by 183.92 points 0.30% to 61,051.38 on Friday.  

The broder market and sectoral indices largely traded in the red as Nifty IT and Nifty realty traded with some gains.  

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Tata Consumer, Infosys, IOC, L&T and Adani Ports were the top gainers as the shares gained between 1.5 to 5 per cent on the Nifty50. Beside some of these share TCS, NTPC, HDFC Bank, HCL Tech, Tech Mahindra and Ultratech cement gained on the Sensex as 9 shares advanced, wgile 21 traded in the red on the 30-share Sensex.  

Asian Paints, Axis Bank, UPL, HDFC Limited, Nestle India, Axis Bank, Hindustan Unilever, Bharti Airtel and Wipro were the top losers on the two indices.  

Meanwhile, December PPI inflation in the US has spiked to a record 9.7%, while FIIs data on Thursday was also not encouraging.  

EXPERTS' TAKE

Vijayakumar said though such an emerging scenario is unfavorable for equity, markets may not react negatively since the high negative real return from fixed income makes returns from equity attractive. Since retail investors are now a force to reckon with, whether in the US or India, their response to market corrections on rate hike expectations will be crucial, says Geojit Financial Services Chief Investment Strategist.   

"FIIs again moving to sell mode ( Rs 1391 cr selling yesterday) may act as temporary headwind for some large private banking stocks in which FIIs have large holdings. This can turn out to be a buying opportunity for long-term investors,"said V K Vijayakumar.