India's key indices -- S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty50 -- witnessed deep losses during the opening hour on Friday, continuing the negative trend witnessed on Thursday.

At 10:20 a.m., Sensex was 1.64 per cent or 904 points down at 54,197 points, whereas Nifty was down by 1.68 per cent or 277 points down at 16,220 points.

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IANS

Among stocks, Asian Paints, Maruti Suzuki, Eicher Motors, Hindustan Unilever were the top five losers among the Nifty 50 companies, down 5.3 per cent, 4.3 per cent, 4.2 per cent, 3.5 per cent, and 3.0 per cent, respectively.

"Even in a declining market there will be safe spots like IT, metals and high quality stocks which will not be impacted by rising inflation and higher interest rates," said V.K. Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

UPL, Dr Reddy's, ITC, Ultratech Cement, and Tata Steel, on the other hand, were the top five gainers in the early trade.

The gap-down start amid the worsening Russia-Ukraine conflict has visibly unnerved the sentiments of investors globally. Except for the metals, all sectors are running in the red. Even the broader markets were showing weakness as the Nifty Midcap 100 and Smallcap 100 indices were down by over one per cent in the opening hour.

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The Indian Rupee was clearly under pressure owing to surging crude oil prices amid the intensifying conflict between Russia and Ukraine. It was down at 75.95 per US dollar, ready to break the psychological barrier of 76 soon.

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