In a major fiscal booster, the government on Friday slashed effective corporate tax to 25.17 per cent inclusive of all cess and surcharges for domestic companies.
Meanwhile, Asian share prices inched higher on Friday as economic stimulus around the world eased fears over slowing growth. MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan rose by 0.15 per cent while Japan's Nikkei rose by 0.46 per cent.
Discussion held on the performance of the banks was carried out with a focus on supporting credit needs of the economy, in particular, the needs of sectors such as NBFCs, HFCs, MSMEs, sectors under stress and enabling better access to cheaper credit.
Tata Steel and JSW Steel were down by 2.4 per cent and 2.2 per cent respectively. Zee Entertainment, Tech Mahindra and HCL Technologies also lost between 1.7 per cent and 2.8 per cent each.
A day earlier, investor sentiment had taken a beating following Saturday's attack on Saudi oil facilities which halved the kingdom's oil output, creating the biggest disruption to global oil supplies in absolute terms since 1979,
Global markets also turned cautious ahead of the two-day meeting of US Federal Open Market Committee. Many experts said the Fed may cut interest rate by 25 basis points.
At 10:15 am, the BSE S&P Sensex was down by 179 points to 36,945 while the Nifty 50 edged lower by 42 points to 10,962.
The company received bids worth Rs 20,830 crore which is the highest in yield-based bond market in the history of BSE Ltd. The company has decided to accept the entire issue of Rs 7,000 crore.
The index for manufactured products with a weightage of over 64 per cent declined by 0.3 per cent to 117.8 in August from 118.1 for the previous month.
