Equity indices extend losses amid selling pressure, IT and auto stocks suffer

Equities came under selling pressure in the afternoon on Tuesday with losses spread across all sectors.

At 12:45 pm, the BSE S & P Sensex was down by 310 points to 36,813 while the Nifty 50 edged lower by 83 points to 10,920.

At the National Stock Exchange, all sectoral indices were in the red with Nifty auto down by 1.4 per cent and IT by 1 per cent.

Among stocks, Hero MotoCorp lost by 2.2 per cent to Rs 2,678.65 per share while Maruti was down by 1.7 per cent and Tata Motors by 1.6 per cent.

IT major Tech Mahindra slipped by 2.6 per cent, Bharti Airtel by 2.3 per cent and Axis Bank by 2.8 per cent. Among the other prominent losers were Cipla, HDFC, Bharat Petroleum Corporation and UltraTech Cement.

However, those which showed marginal gains were Vedanta, GAIL, Titan, Asian Paints and Yes Bank.

Meanwhile, investors in Asian markets remained broadly on the sidelines ahead of an expected interest rate cut from the US Federal Reserve and the next round of US-China trade talks later this week.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan was down by 0.6 per cent while Chinese shares fell by 0.85 per cent.

The investor sentiment took a hit following Saturday's attack on Saudi oil facilities which halved the kingdom's oil output, creating the biggest disruption to global oil supplies in absolute terms since 1979, said reports quoting data from the International Energy Agency.