Equities continue to tumble on global cues, metals lose shine

Equity benchmark indices extended their decline for the fourth consecutive session during early hours on Wednesday after massive sell-offs in global markets amid concerns over coronavirus cases spreading beyond China.

At 10:15 am, the BSE S & P Sensex was down by 261 points or 0.65 per cent to 40,020 while the Nifty 50 tumbled by 81 points at 11,717.

All sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the negative terrain with Nifty metal down by 1.32 per cent, auto by 1.14 per cent, realty by 1.02 per cent and IT by 0.94 per cent.

Among stocks, Hindalco dipped by 2.3 per cent at Rs 170.35 per share while Tata Steel lost by 1.6 per cent to Rs 414.35.

Sun Pharma and Cipla were down by 2.4 per cent and 2.1 per cent respectively. Tata Motors, Eicher Motors, Bharti Infratel, Wipro and GAIL traded with a negative bias.

However, shares of Bandhan Bank surged by 4 per cent after the Reserve Bank of India lifted the regulatory restriction on branch opening.

The other which showed marginal gains were Hindustan Lever, Britannia, Dr Reddy's, Asian Paints and Power Grid Corporation.

Meanwhile, Asian shares fell as a US warning to Americans to prepare for the possibility of a coronavirus pandemic drove another Wall Street tumble.

That led MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan down by 1.28 per cent. Japan's Nikkei was down by 0.86 per cent following growing concerns the virus could cancel the Tokyo Olympics.

Chinese shares fell by 1.3 per cent while South Korea's Kospi dropped by over 1 per cent.

.