Equity gauges on a weak note, Yes Bank drops over 11 pc

Equity benchmark indices were lower during early hours on Thursday tracking weak global cues and continued selling by foreign investors.

At 10:15 am, the BSE S & P Sensex was down 54 points at 39,162 while the Nifty 50 slipped 20 points to 11,667. At the National Stock Exchange, all sectoral indices were in the red except for Nifty financial services.

Among stocks, Yes Bank dipped 10.72 per cent lower at Rs 87.85 per share after reporting 91 per cent drop in its net profit and bad loans worth Rs 6,230 crore during the first quarter of current fiscal.

The other losers were mining major Vedanta, ONGC, Tata Motors and HCL Tech.

However, Wipro gained 2.85 per cent to Rs 267 per share. UPL, HDFC, Indiabulls Housing Finance and Bharti Airtel saw marginal gains.

Meanwhile, Asian shares edged lower as Wall Street stocks dropped on signs that the US-China trade war could hurt corporate earnings. Earlier in the week, US President Donald Trump kept up pressure on Beijing with a threat to put tariffs on another 325 billion dollars of Chinese goods.

The benchmark Nikkei shed 1.7 per cent and Chinese shares followed the suit with Shanghai Composite and blue-chip CSI 300 down 0.7 per cent and 0.6 per cent respectively.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng retreated 0.5 per cent and South Korea's market was off 0.4 per cent after the Bank of Korea unexpectedly cut its policy interest rate for the first time in three years.

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