Stock Market Update: Nifty, Sensex trade flat with positive bias; auto stocks top laggards

After opening lower by half per cent, the Indian markets swung back to trading in the green as the benchmarks Nifty50 and the Sensex hit day's highs of 16,994 and 55,833.95 in the afternoon trade on Friday.  

The indices continued to trade with volatility as the Nifty50 and the Sensex erased all the gains made in the late morning session to trade flat with positive bias in the afternoon. At 1.30 pm, Nifty was trading flat at 16, 615 and the 30-share index at 55,500.  

Nifty midcap and smallcap continued to trade higher by 0.10% and 0.80% respectively. Nifty Pharma, metal, healthcare and PSU Bank attracted buying interest, while auto and consumer durables declined the most.  

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The 12-share Nifty bank too breached 34,500 as the banking index gained nearly 50 points.  

Cipla, Sunpharma, JSW Steel, Dr Reddy's, BPCL, ITC, Power Grid and Asian Paints were among top gainers in the afternoon trade on Friday. Nestle India, Maruti, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Consumers, Tata Motors, Eicher Motors, NTPC, Bharti Airtel and HDFC Ltd were top laggards.  

"Opportunity in finacial and IT stocks"

Earlier, V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, was of the view that present volatility in the market opportunity to accumulate good quality financial and IT stocks.  

He highlighted that FIIs relentless selling has not been able to dent the market much.  

"An important takeaway from the sustained FII selling is that it is not impacting the market much. For instance, FPIs sold IT equity worth Rs 10984 crore in February. But this month IT index has outperformed. This trend is likely in financials too, where FPIs have been major sellers since last October. Investors can use the present weakness in markets to accumulate high quality financials" 

(Disclaimer: The views/suggestions/advice expressed here in this article are solely by investment experts. Zee Business suggests its readers to consult with their investment advisers before making any financial decision.)