Indian equity benchmarks are likely to start the trading week on negative note. At 8:31 am, Nifty futures trading on Singapore Exchange -- an early indicator of the Nifty50 index -- were down 37.5 points or 0.2 percent at 16,960.5.

Share Market Live

NSE

Equities in other Asian markets were largely up though cautiously as investors assessed the impact of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 on the world economy. MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares was up 0.1 percent.

Japan's Nikkei 225 was down 0.2 percent. China's Shanghai Composite and Hong Kong's Hang Seng were up 0.1 percent each.

South Korea's KOSPI was down 0.2 percent and Singapore's Straits Times up 0.1 percent.

S&P 500 futures were up 0.1 percent. On Thursday, the three main Wall Street indices ended 0.6-0.9 percent higher, lifting the mood ahead of Christmas break.

CNBC-TV18’s in-house panel of experts has picked a list of stocks for investors to buy/sell in trade today. Here are the top buy-sell calls by market experts:

Sudarshan Sukhani of s2analytics.com

Buy Coforge with a stop loss at Rs 5,450; the stock could make lifetime highs

Buy IRCTC above Rs 845 with a stop loss at Rs 815

Intraday short Hero MotoCorp with a stop loss at Rs 2,413

Mitessh Thakkar of mitesshthakkar.com

Buy Coforge for a target of Rs 5,800 with a stop loss at Rs 5,580

Buy Wipro for a target of Rs 720 with a stop loss at Rs 690

Sell Sun TV for a target of Rs 480 with a stop loss at Rs 496.5

Sell HDFC Life for a target of Rs 620 with a stop loss at Rs 645

Catch all live market updates here | Trade setup | Stocks to watch