After witnessing a huge loss of over 300 points yesterday (Jan 15), Indian equities, today (Jan 16) opened the day positively after gaining 78.91 points at 9,125.65, as against its last closure in which it lost 323.75 points (3.45%).

Metal, oil & gas and banking stocks were in limelight.

A fair amount of buying was seen across midcap and smallcap segments. BSE Midcap and Smallcap index gained 0.96% and 0.62% respectively.

Tokyo  - Tokyo stocks opened higher Friday on the back of an overnight rebound in the US market and a weaker yen.

The Nikkei 225 Stock Average, which lost nearly 5 per cent the previous day, advanced 101.62 points, or 1.27 per cent, to 8,124.93 in early trading.

The broader Topix index of all First Section issues was also up 9.54 points, or 1.2 per cent, to 805.53.

On the currency markets at 9 am (0000 GMT), the dollar was quoted at 89.94-99 yen, up from Thursday's 5 pm quote of 89.07-09 yen.

Due to continued selling action in several blue chip stocks, the Sensex remained weak during late afternoon trade today.

Stocks cutting across sectors have taken a beating and those from banking, realty, information technology and metal stocks were among the worst hit.

BSE Midcap and Smallcap index fell 2.25% and 2.44% respectively.

Among the sectoral indices, BSE Bankex plummeted 6.25%, BSE Realty tumbled 6.22%, IT declined 5.46% and Metal came down by 5.23%.

Singapore - Singapore shares dropped by 3.4 per cent Thursday amid generally gloomy regional market news and overnight falls on Wall Street.

The Straits Times Index fell by 60.66 points or 3.4 per cent to 1,704.06.

The Singapore Exchange closed with 357 losers against 105 gainers.

Volume was 1,069.5 million shares.

Analysts said speculators forced a price correction on Thursday at the Singapore Exchange which had made recovery on Wednesday after a six straight days of losses.

New Delhi - India's main share indices plunged by almost 4 per cent on opening Thursday as it became clear that the government would not be bailing out fraud-hit information technology major Satyam Computer.

Satyam shares, which had staged a recovery over the past couple of days on hopes of a government bail-out, plunged by over 30 per cent soon after opening.

Shares of India's fourth-largest software exporter had plunged by 78 per cent last week after its founder Ramalinga Raju revealed a 1.43-billion-dollar accounting fraud.

After witnessing a huge rally yesterday (Jan 14), Indian equities belled the day on a weak note following negative global cues causing a massive sell-off.  

The 30-share index, BSE Sensex opened at 9,098.08, down 272.41 points from its last closure. After few minutes of trading, Sensex slipped below the 9,000 mark.

Realty stocks hit the most followed by information technology, metal and banking sectors. The annual inflation rate is likely to be announced later today.