Equities fall on profit booking, banks under pressure

Equity indices erased all morning gains on Monday due to selling pressure in banking, financial services and IT sectors.

At 1:30 pm, the BSE S & P Sensex was 77 points lower at 41,498 while the Nifty 50 slipped by 12 points to 12,234.

Most sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the red with Nifty PSU bank plunging by 1.48 per cent. However, Nifty auto gained by 0.71 per cent.

Punjab and Sind Bank dived by 5.5 per cent to Rs 21.40 per share while Indian Overseas Bank dropped by 3.6 per cent and State Bank of India by 1.1 per cent.

Private lenders ICICI Bank and ICICI Bank lost by 1 per cent each and Axis Bank by 0.7 per cent.

The other prominent losers were Hindalco, Bharat Petroleum Corporation, ONGC, Infosys, HDFC and Hindustan Lever.

However, those which gained were Tata Motors, Sun Pharma, Bharti Airtel, IndusInd Bank and Eicher Motors.