Equities trade lower on weak global cues, banking and metal stocks fall

Mumbai (Maharashtra): Equity benchmark indices swung lower during early hours on Wednesday in line with their Asian peers as the United States said it will maintain tariffs on Chinese goods until after the US presidential election in November.

At 10:15 am, the BSE S&P Sensex was down by 206 points to 41,745 while the Nifty 50 tumbled by 66 points at 12,296. All sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the red except for Nifty realty which gained by 1.12 per cent.

Banking and metal stocks were the worst sufferers. IndusInd Bank lowered by 4.13 per cent to Rs 1,420.40 per share after reporting deteriorating asset quality in third quarter results a day earlier despite 33 per cent jump in net profit.

Yes Bank dropped by 3.6 per cent while State Bank of India slipped by 1.4 per cent. Metal majors Tata Steel, Vedanta and JSW Steel too edged lower by about one per cent each.

Among the other losers were Wipro, Grasim, Bharat Petroleum Corporation and UltraTech Cement. However, Titan, Hero MotoCorp, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Asian Paints and Hindalco showed marginal gains.

Meanwhile, stocks slipped in Asian trade as investors awaited the signing of an initial US-China trade deal. But reports said the trade truce set to be signed later today in Washington (local time) does not include a deal to roll back tariffs imposed on billions of dollars worth of Chinese goods.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan retreated by 0.4 per cent while Japan’s benchmark Nikkei and South Korea’s Kospi shed 0.46 per cent and 0.4 per cent respectively.

China’s Shanghai Composite fell by 0.59 per cent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped by 0.72 per cent.

(ANI)