The Indian markets opened on a flat note with negative bias amid rising Omicron Covid variant and mixed global cues on weekly F&O expiry day on Thursday. Domestic equity benchmarks Sensex and the Nifty50 opened at 57,755.40, and 17,201.45 respectively.  

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Stocks that gained the most on the two indices were BPCL, Cipla, Mahindra & Mahindra,  Wipro, Tata Consumer, Maruti, ITC and Dr Reddy's, while Sun Pharma, IndusInd Bank, Reliance, Bjaja FinServ, ICICI Bank, Kotak Bank and HDFC were top losers on the benchmarks.  

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Earlier, SGX Nifty hinted at flat to negative opening for the Indian markets as hinted by trends at SGX Nifty Futures, which was trading 13 points or 0.08% lower to 17,200 at around 9 am on Thursday.  

In the pre-open, the Sensex opened flat with negative bias as the 30-share index shed 51 points to trade at 57,755.40 before the market open. As many as 11 shares advanced and 19 declined on the Sensex in the pre-open.  

Ahead of the market open, Ruchit Jain, Lead Research, 5paisa.com, said the Nifty showed some momentum at the start of the day on Tuesday, however the index was unable to surpass the 17,300 mark and it witnessed some cool-off to end the day with a small ‘Doji’ candle.  

"Nifty has seen a pullback move of almost 900 points from the recent low and is now trading near its crucial short-term resistance of 17300. Next couple of sessions will be important to see whether the index surpasses this hurdle and continues the momentum or it takes a step back again," said the market expert.  

He said until the Nifty surpasses 17300 and Bank Nifty crosses its resistance of 35500, there is a probability of a small correction which would lead the Nifty to mark a higher low and Bank Nifty to complete its last leg of the correction.   

"Traders should look to book some profits on long positions here and form aggressive longs only if the indices give breakout above the mentioned resistances. For the expiry day, both call and put options have seen a buildup in positions, with highest open interest seen at 17000 put and decent build up seen in 17300 call option today. Open interest addition on both the sides indicates that we may see index trading within a broader range on the expiry day," added Ruchit Jain. 

Earlier, Asia market indices largely traded in the red on Thursday morning. Nikkei 225 was trading down 0.17%, Hang Seng index slid 0.07% and Shanghai Composite traded flat with marginal 0.04% gain around 7.15 am this morning. The Wall Street indices closed mixed on Wednesday. Dow Jones gained 90 points, Nasdaq Composite declined 16 points, S&P500 added 7 points and Russell 2000 marginally gained 3 points to close Wednesday's session on flat note