Equities subdued on global cues, auto and metal stocks suffer

Equity benchmark indices were subdued during early hours on Friday tracking weakness in Asian peers amid global growth concerns.

At 10:15 am, the BSE S & P Sensex was down by 88 points at 39,902 while the Nifty 50 slipped by 37 point to 11,535. At the National Stock Exchange, most sectoral indices were in the red except for financial services, PSU bank and FMCG.

Among stocks, Tata Motors lost by 3.2 per cent to Rs 120.45 per share after Jaguar Land Rover said it will suspend production for a week after the planned Brexit date of October 31 as a prudent measure.

Metal stocks like Tata Steel, Vedanta and Hindalco too suffered losses of over 2 per cent each. The other prominent losers were ONGC, GAIL, Nestle Indian and Bharti Infratel.

However, FMCG major ITC gained by 2.1 per cent. The others which added gains were Reliance Industries, Bajaj Finance, Bajaj Finserv and HDFC.

Meanwhile, Asian shares were on course for a second straight week of losses. The release of a whistleblower complaint against US President Donald Trump heightened uncertainties about the global economy which is already reeling under the impact of US-China trade tariff issues.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan slipped by 0.42 per cent while Japan's Nikkei slid by 1.27 per cent.

A whistleblower report released on Thursday said Trump not only abused his office in attempting to solicit Ukraine's interference in the US election for his political benefit but that the White House tried to lock down evidence about that conduct.

The report came after the Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi launched an impeachment inquiry into him.