At 8:20 AM, GIFT Nifty futures were trading 109 points lower at 24,979, indicating a sharp gap down opening for the Sensex and Nifty.
On Thursday, Indian equity benchmarks closed significantly lower, erasing Wednesday’s gains, as mixed corporate earnings overshadowed the optimism around the proposed India-U.K. free trade agreement. Adding to it, weakness in index heavyweights such as Reliance Industries (RIL), Trent, Bajaj FinServ, and IT major such as Infosys, Tech Mahindra, HCLTech weighed heavily on investor sentiment.
The BSE Sensex settled at 82,184.17, down 542.47 points or 0.66%, while the NSE Nifty50 ended at 25,062.10, slipping 157.80 points or 0.63%. The broader markets also witnessed selling pressure, with the Nifty MidCap 100 and the Nifty SmallCap 100 declined by 0.58% and 1.09%, respectively.