Indian shares edge lower ahead of Reliance results; Zomato soars on debut

BENGALURU: Indian shares edged lower on Friday amid mixed global cues, ahead of quarterly results from oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd while India's first unicorn Zomato Ltd soared at its debut.

By 0406 GMT, the blue-chip NSE Nifty 50 index was down 0.17% at 15,798.05 and the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex was down 0.15% at 52,759.24.

The indexes ended 1.2% higher on Thursday.

Indian shares end lower as IT stocks and Reliance drag

Shares of Indian food delivery firm Zomato opened at a 52.6% premium to their inital public offering price on Friday, in the country's first stock market listing of a startup valued at more than $1 billion.

Investors are also likely to watch out for any possible impact of the pandemic and lockdowns earlier this year on the quarterly results of Reliance Industries, due later today.

First-quarter profit of the Mukesh Ambani-owned company is estimated to come in at 128.38 billion rupees, and revenue at 1.55 trillion rupees, according to Refinitiv data.

Shares of steel companies such as SAIL and Tata Steel could jump through the day after India's union cabinet approved a production-linked incentive scheme on Thursday.

Asian share markets were in a mixed mood on Friday after a volatile week in which sentiment over global growth waxed and waned with every new headline on the Delta variant.

Wall Street fared better, with investors now looking ahead to the Federal Reserve's policy meeting next week.