Nifty slips below 7,900; HDFC, ITC drop over 2%

Markets continued to trade weak weighed down by select index heavyweights even as Infosys helped offset some of the losses on the back of better-than-expected earnings.

At 10:20AM, the 30-share Sensex was down 233 points at 26,404 and the 50-share Nifty was down 70 points at 7,891.

The Indian rupee was trading lower at Rs 61.14 compared to previous close of Rs 61.04 tracking weakness in domestic stock markets.

Asian shares drooped and oil prices fell to two-year lows on Friday after weak German export data raised fears that a recession at the heart of Europe could slow down the global economy.

Japan's Nikkei share average fell 1.2% while Hang Seng extended losses and was down 1.6%. Meanwhile, Shanghai Composite was down 0.4% and Straits Times was trading nearly 1% lower.

Concerns about global economic growth hit oil prices hard, with Brent oil prices falling to $89.24 a barrel, its lowest level since mid-2012.

Except for the IT index all other sectoral indices were in the red with Metal index declining the most down 2.3% followed by FMCG, Capital Goods, Auto and Power indices among others.

Infosys has rallied 5% to Rs 3,817 in otherwise weak market on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), after the company reported a better-than-expected consolidated net profit at Rs 3,096 crore for the second quarter ended September 30, 2014 (Q2).

The country’s second largest IT firm in terms of market value had profit of Rs 2,886 crore in June 2014 quarter. Total consolidated revenues, grew 4.5% to Rs 13,342 crore in the September quarter, as against Rs 12,770 crore in the June quarter, Infosys said in a statement.

Analysts, on an average, had expected profit of Rs 3,033 crore on revenues of Rs 13,315 crore for the quarter

Among other IT shares, HCL Technologies, Wipro, Hexaware Technologies, Tech Mahindra and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) were up 1-2%.

Among other shares, Kesoram Industries slipped 2.5% after the company disowned the news about an imminent take over of the company's tyre business by Kumar Mangalam Birla. Media reports had earlier stated that at a replacement price of around s 1500 crores, B K Birla's Birla Tyres, a part of Kesoram Industries will soon be taken over by the Kumar Managlam group.

In the broader market, the BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices were down nearly 1% each.

Market breadth continued to remain weak with 1,416 losers and 616 gainers.