Indian shares are anticipated to open with minimal changes on Friday, with analysts expecting the benchmarks to maintain their consolidation near present levels.
The Gift Nifty futures were trading at 24,546, as of 8:19 a.m. IST, indicating that the benchmark Nifty 50 will open near Thursday's close of 24,548.7.
The benchmark Nifty 50 has traded in a narrow range of 180 points in the previous four sessions this week.
"The sideways consolidation in Nifty is likely to persist for a few more sessions as the index faces crucial resistance near 24,700-24,800 levels," said Rupak De, senior analyst at LKP Securities.
Both the benchmarks settled lower ahead of the release of domestic inflation data after the closing bell on Thursday, which showed that retail inflation eased in November as soaring vegetable prices moderated, boosting expectations of an interest rate cut by the central bank at its next policy review.
"The inflation reading is lower than market expectations and will improve sentiment," said Devarsh Vakil, deputy head of retail research of HDFC Securities.
However, the markets will continue to trade flat, as it looks for triggers from corporate earnings and economic growth uptick, two analysts said.
Other Asian markets fell on Friday as a strong dollar kept risk sentiment fragile. Wall Street equities closed lower overnight. [MKTS/GLOB]
STOCKS TO WATCH:
** Tata Motors says it will hike commercial vehicle prices by up to 2% from January. ** India's tax department orders Zomato to pay 8.04 billion rupees ($94.74 million) in taxes and fines for non-payment of certain taxes from 2019-2022. ** Ashok Leyland gets order worth 3.46 billion rupees for supplying diesel fuel-type passenger bus chassis to the Tamil Nadu government.
($1 = 84.8630 Indian rupees)