The benchmark indices, the BSE Sensex and the NSE Nifty, gave up their early gains to trade flat in the mid-morning session on Friday.

At 11.18 am, Sensex was at 53,200, up 41 points or 0.08 per cent, while the Nifty was at 15,935, up 11 points or 0.07 per cent.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bharti Airtel, ITC, Reliance, Sun Pharma and Tata Steel. The laggards were HCL Tech, Tech Mahindra, Infosys, ICICI Bank and NTPC.

According to an agency report, Sensex jumped over 100 points to touch a record intra-day high in early trade, tracking gains in index majors Reliance Industries, HDFC twins and ITC, despite a largely negative trend in global markets.

In the previous session, Sensex settled 254.75 points or 0.48 per cent higher at its lifetime high of 53,158.85, and Nifty rose 70.25 points or 0.44 per cent to its all-time high of 15,924.20.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net sellers in the capital market as they offloaded shares worth Rs 264.77 crore on Thursday, as per provisional exchange data.

"Domestic equities look to be modestly good as of now. Notably, dovish remarks of Federal Reserve Chairman Powell in his testimony despite a surge in inflation should offer comfort to global equities, including India," said the report quoting Binod Modi Head-Strategy at Reliance Securities.

Benchmark Nifty, which was consolidating in the range of 15,600-15,900 for the last couple of weeks, is set to cross 16,000 levels shortly, he said, adding that higher crude prices, spread of delta plus variant globally and weakening INR could be a near risk for markets.

Elsewhere in Asia, bourses in Shanghai, Seoul and Tokyo were trading with losses in mid-session deals, while Hong Kong was trading in the positive territory.

Equities on Wall Street too ended on a negative note in overnight sessions.

Meanwhile, international oil benchmark Brent crude declined 0.12 per cent to $73.38 per barrel (with inputs from PTI).

 

 

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