Sensex, Nifty drop amid weak global cues; RIL up 4%

Domestic markets on Friday opened in red amid weak global cues. At 0919 hours Sensex was trading at 28,757.42, down 82.37 points or 0.29%, while, Nifty was at 8,873.45, down 26.30 points or 0.30%.

On 30-share benchmark, among top gainers were Reliance Industries (3.06%), Gail (0.52%), Tata Motors (0.51%), Coal India (0.47%) and Bharti Airtel (0.46%). Among top losers were Infosys (-1.48%), ITC (-1.40%), Asian Pain (-0.90%), HDFC (-0.78%) and NTPC (-0.77%).

Investors will also remain cautious ahead of services PMI data for the month of February. The Nikkei India Services Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), which tracks services sector companies on a monthly basis, came in at 48.7 in January, from 46.8 in December 2016, signalling that the sector is heading towards stabilisation.

Stocks in focus:

Hindalco Industries: Aditya Birla Group firm Hindalco Industries on Thursday that its capital raising committee approved opening of its Qualified Institutional Placement (QIP) at a floor price of Rs 184.45 per equity share.

India`s biggest producer of aluminium and copper, is selling new shares to investors in a bid to raise up to Rs 33.37 billion ($500 million), according to deal term sheet seen by Reuters.

Reliance Industries: Reliance Industries (RIL) announced on Thursday that eight entities of founder groups will acquire up to 118 crore shares from 15 other founder group entities via ‘inter-se’ transfer.

“We being entities forming part of the promoter group of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) intend to acquire from other promoter group entities by way of ‘inter-se’ transfer aggregating up to 1,189,988,400 equity shares of RIL,” the company said in a BSE filing.

Banking stocks: In a bid to discourage cash transactions, banks like HDFC Bank, Axis Bank and ICICI Bank are levying a transaction fee of Rs 150 on deposit or withdrawal of cash from the savings accounts at bank branches beyond four to five times in a month.

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) on Thursday strongly objected the decision.

Tata Motors: Tata Motors sold a total of 47,573 vehicles in the month of February 2017, rising by 2% as against 46,674 vehicles in the corresponding period of the previous year. 

Domestic sales in this month were at  42,679 units, growing by 3% over 41,532 units in February 2016. The shares of the company rose 3% during the trading session.

On Global front, Asian stock markets were mostly lower, with MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan off 0.4% and Australia down 1%. Japan's Nikkei  eased just a fraction, with a weaker yen helping limit the losses, as reported by Reuters. 

A chorus line of Fed officials singing of the need for higher rates has seen the implied probability of a move this month shoot to 74%, from just 30% at the start of the week. 

Fed Chair Janet Yellen and Vice Chair Stanley Fischer are both due to speak later on Friday and are expected to stick to the same tune, the report added.