The Indian market edged lower after a bright start on Friday, tracking weak Asian cues. Most Asian stocks are trading lower this morning after Fed chairman Bernanke said he is not prepared to take immediate action to stimulate the economy and ratings agency Standard and Poor's warned that it could cut U.S. credit ratings.
The benchmark 30-share Sensex is currently at 18,593, down 25 points or 0.13 percent, while the broader Nifty is falling by 20 points or 0.35 percent to 5,580. However, second-line stocks are posting modest gains and the market breadth remains fairly positive, with gainers outpacing decliners by 1205 to 803 shares on the BSE.
Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said in a statement yesterday that the government was working with the RBI to reduce inflation to more comfortable levels. India's headline inflation rose to 9.44 percent in June from 9.06 percent in May, driven by higher prices of fuel and manufacturing products, government data released yesterday showed.
Meanwhile, India received 3 percent deficient rains since its onset in June, the Indian Meteorological Department said. For the week ending 13th July, the monsoon rains were 19 percent below normal but the weather office predicts fairly widespread rainfall over many parts of the country in the next five days.
Metal stocks such as Hindalco, Sterlite and Tata Steel are subdued as commodity prices fell sharply overnight. Among auto stocks, Tata Motors is declining 1.7 percent, Maruti Suzuki is down 0.8 percent and Mahindra & Mahindra is down 0.2 percent. Bajaj Auto is losing 1.2 percent after it reportedly shelved a project to develop a low-cost minicar in India for Renault S.A. and Nissan Motor.
Reliance Industries is little changed with a positive bias after the energy giant submitted its reply on the draft audit report of the Controller and Audit General, which had rapped the Directorate-General of Hydrocarbons for allowing an increase in estimated capital expenditure by the company from $2.4 billion to $8.5 billion between May 2004 and October 2006.
TCS is climbing 2.6 percent after the country's largest software services exporter reported a better-than-expected 28 percent rise in June-quarter net profit. Wipro is adding 0.8 percent and Infosys is posting a modest 0.2 percent gain.
Power producer NTPC is rising 1.1 percent, property developer DLF is up 0.6 percent and Anil Ambani-controlled Reliance Infrastructure is moving up 0.3 percent.
In the banking sector, HDFC Bank is rising marginally, while ICICI Bank is down 0.7 percent. SBI is gaining 0.6 percent after the state-run lender said it plans to raise Rs.20,000 crore via a rights issue by the second or third quarter.
Granules India is rallying 3.8 percent after it announced a joint venture with Belgian chemical company Ajinomoto Omnichem to produce active pharmaceutical ingredients and intermediates for third parties.
Apollo Hospital is rising 0.9 percent after the company reportedly launched an institutional share sale to raise up to Rs.330-crore. GTL is adding a percent on reports of corporate debt restructuring. Corporation Bank is up 0.8 percent on raising its benchmark prime lending rates by 65 basis points. Bajaj Holdings & Investment is down almost 3 percent after posting disappointing results.
The benchmark indexes Sensex and the Nifty ended a choppy session modestly higher on Thursday, shrugging off Wednesday's serial bomb blasts in Mumbai after Union home minister P Chidambaram said that the terror attacks were not attacks on the country's financial markets.
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June 05, 2026 16:18 ET A busy week for economic news flow saw a slew of reports being released that reflected the trends in the U.S. labor market. In Europe, economic growth and inflation data gained attention as the European Central Bank and Bank of England head for policy session later in the month. In Asia, the monetary policy session of the Indian central bank was in focus as the country, a major oil importer, reels under the pressures of a weaker rupee and rising inflation.