Metals, banks drag down equity indices

Mumbai (Maharashtra) : Key equity indices were gap down during early hours on Monday with traders booking profit in metal and banking names.

At 10:15 am, the BSE S&P Sensex was down by 64 points or 0.11 per cent at 58,952 while the Nifty 50 tumbled by 34 points or 0.2 per cent to 17,551.
Sectoral indices were mixed with Nifty metal slipping by 2.8 per cent, PSU bank by 1.4 per cent and auto by 1 per cent. But Nifty FMCG was up by 1.1 per cent and IT by 0.7 per cent.

Among stocks, Tata Steel cracked by 4.2 per cent to Rs 1,327.65 per share while Hindalco lost by 3 per cent and JSW Steel by 2.8 per cent.

The other prominent losers were State Bank of India, IndusInd Bank, ICICI Bank, Axix Bank and Tata Motors.

However, HCL Technologies gained by 2.1 per cent, Tech Mahindra by 1.9 per cent, Hindustan Unilever by 2 per cent, ITC by 1.8 per cent and Nestle India by 0.6 per cent.

Meanwhile, Asian markets were mixed with Japan’s Nikkei up by 0.58 per cent and South Korea’s Kospi by 0.33 per cent.

But Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell by 3.87 per cent.