Equity indices in the green, Yes Bank and Tata Motors in focus

Equity benchmark indices gained marginally during early hours on Wednesday as value buying saw metal and auto stocks lead the gainers.

At 10:15 am, the BSE S & P Sensex was up by 135 points at 37,281 while the Nifty 50 edged up by 31 points to 11,034.

At the National Stock Exchange, all sectoral indices except for IT were in the positive zone. Nifty metal gained by 1.8 per cent, auto by 1.7 per cent and PSU bank by 1.2 per cent.

Among stocks, metal stocks shone bright with JSW Steel gaining by 3.4 per cent, Tata Steel by 2.8 per cent, Vedanta by 2.7 per cent and Hindalco by 1.6 per cent.

Auto majors too added gains with Tata Motors moving up by 5.1 per cent after its retail sales in China continued to recover following the local turnaround plan gathering momentum. Bajaj Auto was up by 2.6 per cent, Maruti by 2.1 per cent and Hero MotoCorp by 1.8 per cent.

Yes Bank edged higher by 7 per cent to Rs 67.55 per share following reports that the private lender's shareholding structure may witness a major churn by the year-end and it has been talking to large private equity firms for capital infusion.

However, IT stocks were in the negative territory with HCL Technologies dipping by 1.9 per cent, Wipro by 1.5 per cent, Tech Mahindra by 1.1 per cent, Infosys by 0.9 per cent and Tata Consultancy Services by 0.7 per cent.

Meanwhile, Asian stock markets held firm as hopes of diminishing US-China tensions and reduced risk of no-deal Brexit prompted investors to take profit ahead of key central bank policy meetings around the globe.

In early trade, MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan was up by 0.10 per cent while Japan's Nikkei rose 0.32 per cent though Chinese stocks were little changed.

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