Asian share markets are lower today as Japanese and Hong Kong shares fall. The Nikkei 225 is off 0.3% while the Hang Seng is down 0.2%. The Shanghai Composite is trading down by 0.1%. US stocks dropped on Friday as a decline in Apple pushed the technology sector lower. A rise in interest rates also kept a lid on equities.

Back home, Indian share markets opened the day on a flat note. The BSE Sensex is trading down by 9 points while the NSE Nifty is trading down by 6 points. The BSE Mid Cap index and BSE Small Cap index both opened the day on a flat note.

Sectoral indices have opened the day on a mixed note with realty stocks and energy stocks witnessing buying interest. While IT stocksbank stocks have opened the day in red. The rupee is trading at 66.02 to the US$.

In the news from the banking sector. HDFC Bank reported 20.3% year-on-year growth in net profit to Rs 48 billion for the quarter ended 31 March 2018.

The profits were boosted by both interest and non-interest-income growth with net interest income growing 17.7% to Rs 106.6 billion and other income by 22.7% to Rs 34.5 billion during the quarter.

Within non-interest income, profit on sale of investment component was Rs 0.2 billion compared with Rs 1.8 billion in the year-earlier period.

The lender also reported 18.7% growth in advances over March 2017 contributed by retail loans. The loan mix between retail and wholesale was in 57:43 ratio as compared with 55:45 at the end of December quarter. Retail loans grew 27.4% and wholesale loans 9.4%.

The bank's gross non -performing assets were at 1.3% of gross advances as on 31 March 2018 against 1.3% as on 31 December 2017 and 1.1% as on 31 March 2017. In absolute terms, gross NPA in March end was Rs 86.1 billion as compared with Rs 58.9 billion in the year-earlier period.

The lender had made a provision of Rs 11.3 billion during the quarter for bad loans as compared with Rs 9.9 billion during the same period of last year.