Indian shares opened lower on Friday, dragged by losses across most sectors, on recession fears in the U.S. and hawkish commentary by major central banks, following their U.S. counterpart.
The Nifty 50 index was down 0.56% at 18,312, as of 09:20 a.m. IST, and the S&P BSE Sensex fell 0.51% to 61,480.69.
U.S. retail sales in November fell more than expected, suggesting higher borrowing costs and fears of an imminent recession are hurting household spending in the world’s largest economy.
Wall Street shares fell sharply overnight, with Dow Jones , S&P 500 losing over 2% and tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite shedding more than 3%.
Following the U.S. Federal Reserve, both the Bank of England and European Central Bank raised rates by half a percentage point each and delivered hawkish commentary, hinting at a prolonged rate-hike cycle.
Asian stocks fell for second day in a row, with the MSCI Asia ex Japan falling over 0.5%.
Barring the Nifty Oil & Gas, all the other sectoral indexes declined with the Nifty IT leading the losses with a 1.3% slide.
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