Equities flat in early choppy trade, IT and pharma stocks in focus

Mumbai (Maharashtra): Equity benchmark indices wobbled between gains and losses during early hours on Friday in line with Asian peers following a record contraction in economic data from the United States.

At 10:15 am, the BSE S&P Sensex was down by 113 points or 0.3 per cent at 37,623 while the Nifty 50 slipped by 31 points or 0.28 per cent at 11,071.

Except for Nifty financial service, all sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the green with Nifty IT gaining by 1.8 per cent and pharma by 1.5 per cent.

Among stocks, HCL Technologies ticked up by 2.8 per cent to Rs 715.05 per share while Tata Consultancy Services was up by 2.2 per cent and Infosys by 2 per cent. Cipla traded 3 per cent higher at Rs 706.40 per share.

State Bank of India advanced by 2.5 per cent, ICICI Bank by 1.8 per cent, IndusInd Bank by 1.5 per cent and Axis Bank by 1.3 per cent.

However, India’s largest company in terms of market cap Reliance Industries lost by 2.5 per cent to Rs 2,055.80 per share on profit-booking, a day after it reported over 30 per cent jump in Q1 net profit at Rs 13,248 crore.

The other which lost were HDFC, HDFC Bank, HDFC Life, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Eicher Motors and Hero MotoCorp.

Meanwhile, Asian shares were mixed as abysmal economic data from the United States and rising global COVID-19 cases weighed on sentiment.

US GDP collapsed at a 32.9 per cent annualised rate in the second quarter, the deepest decline on record, while jobless claims rose last week.

After rising in early trade, MSCI’s broadest index of Asian shares outside Japan was down by 0.22 per cent. Seoul’s Kospi ticked down by 0.2 per cent while Japan’s Nikkei dropped by 1.87 per cent. (ANI)