Indian shares traded lower on Friday, with the benchmark 30-share BSE Sensex down 235 points, or 0.3 percent, at 78,718, while the broader NSE Nifty index slipped 13 points to 24,622. Rising oil prices kept investors on edge after Iran reportedly struck hostile targets in the Strait of Hormuz and said a deal with Oman to manage traffic through the waterway will not fully reopen the vital global trade route. Among the prominent decliners, ICICI Bank, Trent, Bajaj FinServ and Bajaj Finance fell 2 to 4 percent. Information technology stocks were broadly higher, with Infosys, HCL Technologies, Tech Mahindra and TCS rising 1 to 3 percent as global semiconductor shares continued to face selling pressure following disappointing earnings from memory makers SanDisk and Western Digital. REC, IRFC and Power Finance Corporation were moving higher after the RBI released its latest list of Upper Layer Non-Banking Financial Companies. J Kumar Infraprojects gained more than 2 percent after bagging a contract worth Rs. 990.16 crore from the Karnatak Housing Board, and TVS Motor Company added 1 percent after launching its premium electric scooter, the TVS iQube, in Kenya.
