Indian equity indices opened in red, dropping for the third day in a row on Friday, amid a broad pessimistic trend in world markets. In the initial trading, the Sensex fell 319.3 points to 58,800.42. The Nifty dropped 90.8 points to 17,539.

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Power Grid, IndusInd Bank, HDFC, Mahindra & Mahindra, and Axis Bank were the main laggards in early trade within the 30-share Sensex group. Tata Steel, Hindustan Unilever, Sun Pharma, Infosys, HCL Technologies, and Dr Reddy, on the other hand, benefited.

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Asian markets are trading in red with Straits Times falling 26.84 points or 0.82% to 3,236.23, Hang Seng tumbling 160.53 points or 0.88% to 17,987.42, Taiwan Weighted lost 141.30 points or 0.99% to 14,143.33, KOSPI dipped 43.65 points or 1.87% to 2,288.66, Jakarta Composite declined 41.69 points or 0.58% to 7,177.22 and Shanghai Composite was down by 33.58 points or 1.08% to 3,075.33.

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The US markets ended in negative territory on Thursday. The S&P 500 dropped 31.94 points, or 0.8%, to 3,757.99. The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 107.10 points, or 0.4%, to 30,076.68. The Nasdaq plunged 153.39 points, or 1.4%, to 11,066.81. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies slipped 39.85 points, or 2.3%, to 1,722.31.

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Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth a net Rs 2509.55 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 263.07 crore in the Indian equity market on September 22, as per provisional data available on the NSE.

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“The global risk-off is gaining strength aided by the steadily rising dollar. The dollar is rising against all currencies and this will impact capital flows into emerging markets including India. The resumption of FPI buying since July has been supporting the rally in India. Now this is under threat with FPIs turning sellers in 5 out of the last 7 days,” said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services. The near-term market outlook is bearish, Vijayakumar added.

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On Thursday, the Sensex dropped 337.06 points, or 0.57%, to 59,119.72. The Nifty fell 88.55 points, or 0.50%, to 17,629.80.

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Meanwhile, Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, slipped 0.50% to USD 90.02 a barrel. The rupee opened at 81.08 against the US dollar, then slipped further to 81.23, registering a fall of 44 paise over its previous closing.