Subdued Asian peers weighed on the sentiment, capping gains for the equity benchmarks
Opening with healthy gains, headline indices Sensex and Nifty started the first day of May F&O series on a positive note.
A strong surge in market-wide rollovers suggests traders are largely pricing in a favorable election outcome and paying little heed to the weakening macro-economic indicators.
The market-wide rollovers stood at 83 percent. Nifty futures rollover stood at 81 percent, which was way above 63 percent rollovers seen in the last three series.
Besides, FPI inflow also influenced the mood. Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought Rs 3,785.73 crore worth of domestic stocks on Thursday, data available with NSE suggested. DIIs were net sellers to the tune of Rs 4,069.98 crore, data suggested.
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The Indian rupee gained some strength against the US dollar following a slight fall in crude oil prices. The domestic unit inched up by 16 paise against the dollar in early trade. However, it turned almost flat soon after some buying of the greenback by banks and exporters.
Oil prices dipped on Friday on expectations that producer club Opec will soon raise output to make up for a decline in exports from Iran following a tightening of sanctions by the United States against Tehran, Reuters reported.
Subdued Asian peers weighed on the sentiment, capping gains for the equity benchmarks.
Around 9:30 am, the BSE Sensex was 82 points, or 0.21 percent, up at 38,812 while Nifty was 25 points, or 0.22 percent, up at 11,667.
Midcaps and small-caps rose in line with benchmark Sensex as the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices were 0.22 and 0.26 percent up, respectively, around that time
Tata Steel rose over 5 percent and was the best performing Sensex stock after the company on Thursday, post market hours, reported a profit of Rs 2,430.92 crore (attributable to the shareholders) for the quarter ended March 31. Analysts in an ET NOW poll had projected a profit of Rs 2,330 crore.
It was followed by Axis BankNSE 1.12 % which gained nearly 3 percent. The private-sector lender too had posted its March quarter numbers on Thursday. The bank moved back in the black as asset quality of the lender improved for the fourth straight quarter in Q4FY19 coupled with double-digit fall in provisions
HCL Tech, NTPC and Power Gride were among other top gainers.
However, Tata Motors, Maruti Suzuki, Hero MotoCorpNSE -0.78 %, Kotak Mahindra BankNSE -0.94 % and HDFC were among the top losers.
Barring auto, industrials, and consumer discretionary goods & services, all sectoral indices were in the green on BSE.
Metal, oil & gas and utility sectors were trading with decent gains. BSE Metal index climbed nearly 2 percent on gains in shares of Tata Steel, Jindal Steel, SAIL, JSW Steel and Coal India.
Meanwhile, HDFC Life Insurance Company, Hero MotoCorp, and YES Bank are among the companies that will come out with their March quarter numbers today.
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