Indian market traded off-highs Friday afternoon led by the gains in the Nifty IT index and global equities, that traded higher after four sessions of bruising losses. At 2:20 pm, the Sensex was trading 883.16 points higher at 29,171.39 while the Nifty index was at 8,522.85, up 259.40 points or 3.14 percent.

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Markets came under pressure after Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray announced that beginning midnight on Friday all workplaces will remain closed till March 31. The state government's decision will apply to Mumbai, MMR Region, Pune, Pimpri Chinchwad and Nagpur to reduce the unnecessary movement of the people.

The Nifty Midcap100 index saw most gains, trading 6 percent higher while the Nifty Smallcap100 index rose over 4 percent.

Among sectoral indices, Nifty IT remained the best-performing index while Nifty Realty was the only one to trade in the red. ONGC, GAIL, TCS, Wipro and HCL Technologies were the Nifty50 top gainers during the afternoon session while HDFC Bank, IndusInd Bank and Adani Ports remained the top losers.

Among stocks, HDFC Bank erased about 8 percent gains today after the wave of selling across banking stocks over the past few days. Additionally, the global research firm AllianceBernstein downgraded the stock and cut its target price to Rs 750 from Rs 1,400 earlier.

While HDFC Bank saw substantial sell-off, Indiabulls Housing Finance witnessed huge buying. The stock rallied 29 percent in today's trade after the company said clearly that it has no outstanding loans from Yes Bank.

In Asia, share markets made a partial comeback from a global rout on Friday but still nursed massive losses for the week. U.S. S&P 500 e-mini stock futures also pointed to a brighter end to the week, adding 1.7 percent. In afternoon trade in Asia, MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was 4.41 percent higher, ending a seven-sessions streak of losses.

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First Published:Mar 20, 2020 1:24 PM IST