Sensex opens flat; investors wait for RIL earnings announcement

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], April 21 : The domestic equity markets opened flat on Friday and traded in the negative territory, tracking weak global cues. The investors wait for earnings of heavyweights like Reliance Industries and Hindustan Zinc as prior announcements of compes for the fourth quarter failed to lift sentiments on BSE as well as NSE.

BSE Sensex lost 28 points to 59,612.07 and NSE Nifty declined 17 points to 17,607.30 at 11.20 am on Friday. Sectoral indices of Oil & Gas, FMCG, IT, Telecommunication were in the positive territory while Auto, Bankex, Power and Realty on BSE were in the negative territory.

In Asian markets, Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 221 points, Japan's Nikkei dropped 78 points, China's Shanghai lost 38 points, Thailand SET dipped 6 points when domestic markets opened on Friday.

In US markets, Dow Jones lost 110 points, S&P/BMV dropped 14 points, Nasdaq and NYSE Composite were in the positive territory as their stock exchanges closed on Thursday. Investors in the US worried about the Federal Reserve's next move on interest rates.

In European markets, BEL, CAC, Deutsche Borse, FTSE 100, Madrid SE, Amsterdam Exchange and IBEX 35 were in the positive territory.

Earnings of Reliance Industries and its subsidiaries are expected to be announced on Friday. The oil-to-telecom conglomerate had registered a net profit of Rs 16,203 crore in the year-ago period. The stock, which is the most valuable one in the country, is also one of the compes, which is monitored by domestic investors most of the time.

Snapping a three-day losing streak on Thursday, the S&P BSE Sensex gained 64.55 points to 59,632.35 and NSE Nifty added 5.70 points to 17,624.45. In the previous three sessions, the Sensex fell 1.43 per cent while the Nifty slipped 1.17 per cent. US stocks closed mostly flat on Wednesday after earnings reports from Netflix and Morgan Stanley.