Negative sentiment in domestic equity indices continued as it has declined for the five out of the past six sessions, especially after the central bank raised the repo rate by 50 percentage points after its policy review meeting on Wednesday.
On Friday, Indian markets opened sharply lower in line with negative cues from other Asian markets and from the US markets, said Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research, HDFC securities.
"The US stocks tumbled late Thursday to close sharply lower, with the Nasdaq skidding 2.8 per cent, as jittery investors looked ahead to a reading on May inflation due Friday morning," Jasani added.
At 9.39 a.m., Sensex was at 54,600.71 points, down 719.57 points or 1.3 per cent, whereas Nifty at 16,273.60 points, down 204.50 points or 1.2 per cent.
By 11:01 a.m, Sensex recorded 54,633.12 or 687.16 points down (1.24%), while Nifty too declined to 16,277.10 or 201.00 points down (1.22%).
Among the individual stocks, Wipro, Bajaj Finance, Tech Mahindra, Hindalco, and Tata Steel were the top five losers during the morning session among the Nifty50 stocks, NSE data showed.
