Equity indices flat in early trading, IT stocks take a beating

Equity indices languished in the negative terrain during early hours on Tuesday as investors awaited the outcome of new European Central Bank (ECB) boss Christine Lagarde's first policy meeting later this week.

At 10:15 am, the BSE S & P Sensex was down by 11 points to 40,476 while the Nifty 50 edged lower by 6 points at 11,931. Most sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the red with Nifty IT down by 0.9 per cent.

Among stocks, Tata Consultancy Services slipped by 1.3 per cent to Rs 2,033 per share. Tech Mahindra was down by 1.2 per cent, Wipro traded 0.8 per cent lower while HCL Technologies suffered a loss of 0.7 per cent.

The other major losers were Zee Entertainment, Bharti Infratel, Axis Bank, Yes Bank and Power Grid Corporation. However, those which showed some gains were Sun Pharma, Cipla, ONGC, UPL and Grasim.

Meanwhile, Asian equity markets were a tad lower as investors refrained from making major bets before December 15, when the next round of US tariffs on Chinese imports is due to take effect. A Chinese Commerce Ministry official said a day earlier that Beijing hopes to make a trade deal with Washington as soon as possible.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan was down by 0.04 per cent while Japan's Nikkei lost by 0.23 per cent.