Domestic markets open flat as investors maintain a cautious outlook

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], December 19 : Domestic markets opened flat in early trade on Monday, as investors picked up cues from weak global markets while maintaining a cautious outlook. Last week, major central banks raised their policy rates by half a per cent.
S&P BSE Sensex gained 40 points to 61,378.29 whereas NSE Nifty 50 surged 19.75 to 18,288.75 level at 9.30 am on Monday.
Some of the gainers on BSE were Dalmia Sugars, Bajaj Hind, Renuka Sugars and Dwarikesh Sugar. During the morning trade, laggards were Lemon Tree, PNC Infra, Affle and EPL Ltd.
On NSE, some of the most active stocks were Power Grid, ITC, Nestle, Baja Auto and Bajaj Finserv while BPCL, Sun Pharma, ONGC, Infosys and Tata Motors were in the negative territory in the morning trade on Monday.
In Asian markets, Japan's Nikkei lost 243 points, Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 21 and China's Shanghai declined 2.55 points in Monday's early trade. In European markets, FTSE went down 94 points, CAC lost 70 points and Deutsche declined 93 points. In the US, Dow Jones lost 281 points, Nasdaq fell 105 points and S&P went down 43 points.
The rupee gained slightly against the dollar in early trade on Monday. According to Investing.com, the rupee was last at 82.737 per dollar in early trade -- a surge of 0.04 per cent -- compared to its previous close of 82.85 on Friday.
On Friday, the domestic stock market ended with deep cuts, mirroring weak global cues. Investors dumped shares as major central banks across the globe raised their policy rates by half a per cent while maintaining a hawkish tone on inflation. Meanwhile, disappointing US retail sales for November elevated concerns of an imminent recession.
All the sectoral indices on the NSE ended in the red on Friday.
Sensex tumbled 461.22 points or 0.75 per cent to 61,337.81. The Nifty 50 index declined 145.90 points or 0.79 per cent to 18,269. On Friday, the NSE's India VIX, a gauge of the market's expectation of volatility over the near term, rose 2.45 per cent to 14.07.
On Friday, the rupee declined 9 paise to close at 82.85 (provisional) against the US dollar, amid heavy selling pressure in domestic equities and a strong greenback overseas. However, receding crude oil prices capped the local currency's loss, forex traders said. Meanwhile, the dollar index, which gauges the greenback's strength against a basket of six currencies, rose 0.13 per cent to 104.69 on Friday.
Dilip Buildcon declined 2.20 per cent on Friday. The road developer said it received a letter of acceptance for a new hybrid annuity model project in Jharkhand worth Rs 976 crore. On Friday, LIC declined 2.83 per cent while HDFC AMC shed 0.95 per cent. Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) disclosed that it increased its stake in HDFC Asset Management Company
The European Central Bank moved its key interest rate from 1.5 per cent to 2 per cent on Thursday while the Bank of England and the Swiss National Bank also opted to increase their interest rates by 50 basis points as Europe tries to control high inflation.