Nifty hits record high, crosses earlier level of 9532.6, Sensex higher by 0.2%

9:29 am Record high: Nifty hits record high as it surpassed its earlier level of 9532.6, while the Sensex was trading over 0.25 percent higher.

9:20 am CLSA downgrades Cipla: Cipla Q4 net loss narrowed to Rs61.79 crore but muted EBITDA margins led to a downgrade by CLSA to underperform from outperform earlier. The Asia-focussed broker lowered its 12-month target price to Rs 525 from Rs660 earlier

“The key disappointment in Cipla’s 4QFY17 results was its Ebitda margins, which came 4 percent below our estimates. This reverses the margin improvement trend displayed in 9MFY17,” said the CLSA note.

“We believe cost-led margin expansion has played out and next leg of margin improvement must be led by double-digit revenue growth,” it said.

9:15 am Market Opens: A day after the record high closing on the Street, equity benchmarks on Friday opened flat, with the Nifty holding on to 9500-mark.t

The Sensex was up 15.98 points at 30766.01, while the Nifty was down 6.85 points at 9502.90. The market breadth was healthy as 513 shares advanced against a decline of 262 shares, while 36 shares were unchanged.

Asian Paints and Dr Reddy’s Laboratories were the top gainers on both indices, while Cipla, Sun Pharma and Indian Oil Corporation lost the most.

Midcaps were trading flat after a bullish run on Thursday, while the banking stocks were a drag.

The Indian rupee opened with marginal gain of 5 paise at 64.56 per dollar on Friday versus previous close 64.61.

Ashutosh Raina of HDFC Bank said, “The USD-INR currency pair has been trading in the 64.50-65 range, with the cross-border tensions limiting the gains. Expect the pair to trade in the 64.40-64.90 range today.”

He further added, “The bonds are stuck in a very narrow range with 10-year bonds trading in the 6.75-6.80 percent range after their recent rally from tops. Expect the trend to continue.”

The dollar index fell against a basket of major currencies following Wednesday's Fed minutes dialled down some expectations of the central bank hiking interest rates soon.

Stocks in Asia were mixed at the open on Friday, after major oil producers agreed to extend output cuts for an additional nine months at an OPEC meeting in Vienna yesterday.

The production cuts of 1.8 million barrels a day, first agreed on in November last year, will now extend to March 2018. The OPEC-led output cuts are targeted at rebalancing the global overhang in the oil markets which saw oil prices fall by more than half in recent years.

Oil prices fell by almost 5 percent in the last session following the news as some investors had been hoping for deeper production cuts. US crude had traded above the USD 50 mark for most of the week in anticipation of the OPEC meeting.

US stocks rose on Thursday, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite hitting new highs, helped by gains in the consumer discretionary sector after strong reports from Best Buy and other retailers.

The discretionary index was up 1.2 percent, while the S&P 500 retail index was up 1.9 percent, on track for its best day since November 7.

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