At 10:15 am, the BSE S&P Sensex was down by 575 points or 1.93 per cent to 29,241 while the Nifty 50 edged lower by 178 points or 2.06 per cent to 8,482.
Mumbai (Maharashtra): Equity benchmark indices were buoyant during early hours on Friday ahead of a media briefing by Reserve Bank...
Worst hit shares in the Nifty index at the time were Bajaj Finance, Axis bank, Maruti Suzuki, UltraTech Cement, Shree Cement and ICICI Bank, trading between 9.99 per cent and 13.28 per cent lower.
The other prominent winners were HCL Technologies, Coal India, Eicher Motors and ONGC. But UPL, Bharti Infratel, Bajaj Finserv and Kotak Mahindra Bank were in the red.
Meanwhile, global stock markets were roiled after the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates in an emergency move to cushioning the economic impact of coronavirus.
Overnight on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 2,353 lower at 21,201, the S&P 500 tanked 9.5 per cent and the Nasdaq Composite ended 9.4 per cent lower at 7,202.
At the closing bell, the BSE S&P Sensex was down by 1,448 points or 3.64 per cent to 38,297 while the Nifty 50 plunged by 414 points or 3.56 per cent at 11,219.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan was up by 0.3 per cent while Japan's Nikkei stock index rose by 1.19 per cent. Shares in China rose by 0.5 per cent while stocks in Hong Kong climbed by 0.42 per cent in early trading.
Among stocks, index heavyweight Reliance Industries gained by 2.34 per cent at Rs 1,417.90 per share while Hero MotoCorp was up by 2.4 per cent at Rs 2,435 per share. Bharti Infratel, Hindalco, UltraTech Cement and HDFC Bank too edged higher by over 2 per cent each.
Equity benchmark indices ended lower on Friday ahead of the Union Budget even as the Economic Survey estimated that India's GDP will grow at 6 to 6.5 per cent in the financial year beginning April 1.
