Equity gauges in the red, auto stocks suffer most

Equity benchmark indices traded weak during early hours on Monday in line with Asian peers as fears mounted over the rising cases of coronavirus and economic impact of lockdown in most parts of the world.

At 10:15 am, the BSE S & P Sensex was down by 575 points or 1.93 per cent to 29,241 while the Nifty 50 edged lower by 178 points or 2.06 per cent to 8,482.

Except for Nifty IT and pharma, all sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the red with Nifty auto down by 4.1 per cent, metal and realty by 3.4 per cent each, PSU bank by 2.4 per cent and financial service by 2.9 per cent.

Among stocks, Bajaj Finance was the top loser after clocking a loss of 9.04 per cent to Rs 2,312.60 per share.

Mahindra & Mahindra fell by 6.5 per cent, Eicher Motors by 6.3 per cent, Maruti Suzuki by 4.3 per cent and Bajaj Auto by 4.2 per cent.

The other prominent losers were Bajaj Finserv, JSW Steel, Tata Steel, ONGC and UPL. However, Cipla, Axis Bank, Tech Mahindra, GAIL and Zee Entertainment traded with a positive bias.

Meanwhile, Asian shares slid and oil prices tumbled as fears mounted that the global shutdown for coronavirus pandemic could last for months.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan lost by 1.1 per cent while Shanghai blue chips shed 1.4 per cent.

Central banks within and outside India have mounted an all-out effort to bolster economic activity with interest rate cuts and asset-buying campaigns. Still, the projections for global economy in 2020 continue to depress investor sentiment.