Sensex down 431 points, Nifty trades below 16,950

The main indices traded near the day`s low with modest losses in mid morning trade. The Nifty traded above the 16,900 mark. Barring the IT and FMCG stocks, all sectoral indices on the NSE traded in the red.

At 11:28 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was down 431.64 points or 0.75% to 56,883.34. The Nifty 50 index fell 134.65 points or 0.79% to 16,937.05.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index fell 1.11% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index declined 0.62%.

Sellers outpaced buyers. On the BSE, 1280 shares rose and 1861 shares fell. A total of 110 shares were unchanged.

COVID-19 Update:

India reported 6,650 new COVID-19 cases and 374 deaths in the last 24 hours. The country`s active caseload currently stands at 77,516. Meanwhile, India`s Omicron tally jumped to 358 with 88 cases in Maharashtra and 67 in Delhi.

Buzzing Index:

The Nifty Metal index slipped 0.99% to 5,464, slipping for second trading session.

Steel Authority of India (down 2.42%), NMDC (down 1.78%), Tata Steel (down 1.36%), Hindalco Industries (down 1.36%) and Jindal Steel & Power (down 1.22%) were the top losers. Among the other losers were Coal India (down 0.98%), JSW Steel (down 0.72%), Hindustan Zinc (down 0.59%), Vedanta Ltd (down 0.12%) and APL Apollo Tubes (down 0.06%).

Stocks in Spotlight:

Mindteck (India) rose 4.98% on securing a project on the optimization of application module software as an external module of instrument control and workflow module software, from a mass spectrometry solutions firm.

Indian Metals & Ferro Alloys rose 0.77%. The company prepaid a term debt of Rs 181 crore as on date and after the payment of normal installments in Q3 FY22, the firm`s long term debt will reduce to Rs 143.94 crore to become net debt free.

Global Markets:

Asian stocks were mostly trading higher on Friday following gains overnight on Wall Street, with the S&P 500 closing at a new record. Some markets in Asia-Pacific, including Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong, are set to close early on Friday due to Christmas Eve.

Japan`s November consumer inflation marked the biggest year-on-year rise in nearly two years on surging fuel costs. Japan`s core consumer price index (CPI), which excludes volatile fresh food but includes oil costs, rose 0.5% in November from a year earlier, government data showed.

US stocks rose for a third day on Thursday as investors looked past earlier jitters about the spread of the omicron Covid variant. Helping boost sentiment were new studies suggesting that omicron has a lower risk of hospitalization than other Covid variants. U.S. markets will remain closed today for the Christmas holiday.

The Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization for Pfizer`s Covid pill, the first oral antiviral drug against the virus. The FDA also authorized Merck`s antiviral pill for Covid-19 on Thursday.

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