Sensex, Nifty sluggish in opening; ICICI falls, Sun TV soars 20%

Moneycontrol Bureau9:50 am BSE pre-opening: BSE stock settled at Rs 1085 in pre-open trade against issue price of Rs 806 per share.9:35 am BoAML on Glenmark: Bank of America Merrill Lynch has reiterated its buy call on the stock, with a target price of Rs 1,100 as it feels strong growth and balance sheet clean-up are major re-rating triggers. Q3 earnings beat was led by higher than expected sales of gZetia in US. US business now is in a strong growth phase. Other segments are in line and operating leverage boosted margin, the brokerage house says.Also read - Indian IT cos need to stop using H1-B visas: Narayan Murthy9:15 am Market CheckEquity benchmarks started off Friday's trade on sluggish note despite weakness in Asian peers. Investors awaited RBI policy due next week and corporate results.The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 36.47 points at 28190.14 and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 12.20 points to 8722.05.Infosys, HDFC, ICICI Bank, Adani Ports, Maruti Suzuki, IndusInd Bank and ACC were losers in early trade while Axis Bank, ONGC, Sun Pharma, GAIL, Coal India, Idea Cellular, Bharti Infratel, Tata Power, Tech Mahindra and Aurobindo Pharma gained.Sun TV Network surged 20 percent in opening after Special 2G court cleared charges against former Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran and his brother & head of the company Kalanidhi Maran, in Aircel-Maxis case. It is a significant positive for the company as this case was the biggest overhang.The Indian rupee opened marginally higher at 67.35 per dollar versus 67.37 Thursday.Ashutosh Raina of HDFC Bank said, “The USD-INR pair continues to gain on the back of global dollar weakness with the dollar index settling around 99.50 levels, sharply lower from its recent highs.”“The market will be keenly awaiting US jobs data due later today. We expect the USD-INR pair to trade in the range of 67.20-67.50/dollar today,” he added.The US dollar rebounded from its weakest level since mid-November on views that the greenback's longer-term upward trend remained intact, while the rouble surged after the US treasury adjusted sanctions on a Russian spy agency.Asia shares were lower as China markets reopened after the week-long Lunar New Year holiday break and a private China manufacturing survey missed forecasts.US stocks ended little changed on Thursday as the recent rally continued to stall following President Donald Trump's latest comments on trade and the policies he will pursue.