Equities downbeat on trade worries, Nifty IT down by over 2 pc

Equity benchmark indices were in the negative terrain during early hours on Friday amid persistent global concerns over the US-China trade deal.

At 10:15 am, the BSE S & P Sensex was down by 112 points at 40,463 while the Nifty 50 slipped by 32 points to 11,936. Sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were mixed with Nifty IT dropping by 2.1 per cent.

Software major Infosys tumbled by 2.78 per cent to Rs 693.40 per share while Wipro and Tech Mahindra were down by 1.9 per cent each, HCL Technologies by 1.8 per cent and Tata Consultancy Services by 1.7 per cent.

The other losers were Bharti Infratel, Bharti Airtel, Cipla, UPL and Titan.

However, NTPC gained by 2.6 per cent at Rs 118.35 per share after Morgan Stanley upgraded the power utility major to 'overweight' from 'equal weight' earlier with a target price of Rs 152.

Index heavyweight Reliance Industries also added gains of 1.7 per cent while the other gainers included Power Grid Corporation, Zee Entertainment, Sun Pharma, ITC, Vedanta and Tata Steel.

Meanwhile, Asian equities posted mild gains amid persistent worries over the status of trade negotiations between China and the United States.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan climbed by 0.12 per cent on worries that the US legislation on Hong Kong threatens to undermine trade talks between the world's two largest economies.

Chinese blue-chip shares were down by 0.82 per cent but Japan's Nikkei was up by 0.43 per cent.