Opening Bell: Nifty, Sensex open in green on last trading day of 2021; banking shares in focus

The Indian markets started in the green on the last trading week of 2021 on Friday amid mixed global cues and omicron scare. Domestic equity market benchmarks Nifty50 and the S&P BSE Sensex opened at 17,244.50 and 57,849.76 respectively on Friday.  Nifty maintained its crucial support of 17,200 and went on to go past it to 17,300, while the Sensex also touched 58,000, minutes after opening.  

Bank Nifty also opened positive at 35,114.40 and was trading with 5 per cent gain.  

See Zee Business Live TV Streaming Below:

Hindalco, Titan, Ultratech cement, Grasim, Axis Bank, Titan, Kotak Bank, Tata Steel, ICICI Bank and Mahindra and Mahindra were the top gainers on the two indices, while NTPC, Tech Mahindra, IndusInd Bank, Dr Reddy's Wipro, Powergrid, Infosys, ONGC, Nestle India declined the most. 

In the pre-open, the Sensex started on a flat note by opening 10 points lower at 57,784.69 even as 21 shares advanced, 8 declined and 1 remained unchanged at 9.05 am.  

Earlier, SGX Nifty hinted at a negative opening for the Indian markets as Futures Index was trading 20 points or 0.12% lower to 17,275.00.  

In the Asian market, Hang Seng Index traded 442 points higher, Shanghai Composite also gained 7 points on Friday morning, while Nikkei 225 remained closed for the year end. The Japanese index had closed 115 points lower on Thursday.  

Earlier, all major US stock market indices closed marginally lower on Thursday. Dow Jones corrected 91 points to 36,398, Nasdaq Composite slipped 25points to close at 15,742, S&P500 declined 14.33 points to settle at 4779 and Russell 2000 ended 0.45 points lower or flat at 2249 in Thursday's closing