India's GIFT Nifty was down 0.47% at 19,387 as of 8:10 a.m. IST, below the benchmark Nifty 50's Thursday close of 19,395.30.

Wall Street stock benchmarks fell overnight, with S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite snapping their longest winning streak in two years, as market optimism over monetary policy faded after Powell's comments.

The Fed is not confident that it has achieved a sufficiently restrictive stance to bring inflation down to 2%, Powell said, triggering a rise in U.S. Treasury yields. The odds of a 25 basis-point rate hike in December rose to 12.1% from 9.6% a day before.

Asian markets declined, with the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index shedding over 1%.[MKTS/GLOB]

The Nifty 50 is up 0.86% for the week so far, but has faced resistance near 19,450 levels in the last two sessions. The small- and mid-caps have outperformed the blue-chips, adding over 2.4% each, supported by strong retail inflows.

"The net inflows into small- and mid-cap funds cornered about 35% of total equity net inflows in October," said Viraj Gandhi, chief executive at Samco Mutual Fund.

Data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) showed that inflows into equity mutual funds rose nearly 42% month-on-month in October. This is the 32nd consecutive month of inflows into equity mutual funds.

In contrast to domestic investors, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) continued to offload Indian equities in November. FIIs sold shares worth 17.12 billion rupees ($205.55 million) on Thursday, extending their selling streak to the 12th session. Foreign outflows from domestic markets hit a nine-month high in the previous month.

STOCKS TO WATCH:

** ICICI Bank: Private lender gets approval from the Reserve Bank of India to make ICICI Securities a wholly owned subsidiary.

** Hindustan Aeronautics: State-owned defence company signs contract with Airbus for establishing maintenance repair and overhaul facilities for A-320 family of aircraft in Maharashtra.

** Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail: Company posts consolidated net loss of 1.79 billion rupees in September quarter compared to profit of 376.9 million rupees in the year ago quarter.

** Aurobindo Pharma: Drug maker reports jump in second quarter profit, aided by strong overseas demand.

** Major earnings: Mahindra & Mahindra, Oil & Natural Gas Corporation, Coal India, Hindalco Industries, Life Insurance Corporation of India

($1 = 83.2870 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonia Cheema)