Mumbai, Dec 13 (IANS): The Indian stock market opened in red on Friday as selling was seen in Nifty's all sectors in early trade.

At around 9:29 am, Sensex was trading at 80,840.9 after declining 449.02 points or 0.55 per cent, while Nifty was trading at 24,421.15 after dropping 127.55 points or 0.52 per cent.

The market trend remained negative. On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), 559 stocks were trading in green, while 1,657 stocks were in red.

According to market experts, “November CPI inflation at 5.48 per cent has come within the RBI’s tolerance limit. If this trend continues it can pave the way for a rate cut by the monetary policy committee (MPC) in February.”

"However, the rising dollar is a concern since it can lead to imported inflation. Nifty is unlikely to break from the range of 24,500-24,850,” they added.

Nifty Bank was down 40.95 points or 0.08 per cent at 53,175.50 Nifty Midcap 100 index was trading at 58,706.85 after dropping 314.85 points or 0.53 per cent. Nifty Smallcap 100 index was at 19,336.50 after dropping 130.05 points or 0.67 per cent.

Akshay Chinchalkar of Axis Securities said that Thursday was another down day on the Nifty with the market yet again failing to get past what is now undoubtedly a key near-term hurdle near 24,700.

"Yesterday's drop had higher participation compared with what was seen the day before, which means market participants are nervous," he mentioned

In the Sensex pack, Power Grid, Bharti Airtel, Adani Ports, Sun Pharma, NTPC and Tata Motors were the top gainers. Whereas, JSW Steel, Tata Steel, Infosys, M&M, Titan, UltraTech Cement, Bajaj Finance and L&T were the top losers.

In the Asian markets, except Seoul, the markets of Hong Kong, Bangkok, China, Jakarta and Japan were trading in red.

In the US stock markets, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite ended 0.54 per cent and 0.66 per cent lower, respectively. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 0.53 per cent down on the previous trading day.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold equities worth Rs 3,560.01 crore in the Indian market on December 12, while domestic institutional investors bought equities worth Rs 2,646.65 crore on the same day.