Equity indices in the red during early trading, Nifty PSU bank gains by 1 pc

Equity benchmark indices were in the negative zone during early hours on Monday despite Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman last week announcing a slew of measures to spur the economy, including roll-back of an increase in surcharge on the income tax outgo of foreign investors.

At 10:15 am, the BSE S & P Sensex was down by 77 points at 36,624 while the Nifty 50 edged lower by 41 points to 10,789.

The optimism over Sitharaman's bid to boost auto and infrastructure sectors was tempered with caution amid renewed trade war escalation between the United States and China along with fresh forecasts of a slowdown in global economic growth.

At the National Stock Exchange, all sectoral indices were in the red except for Nifty PSU bank which gained by 1.1 per cent. Nifty metal dropped by 4 per cent down while auto was down 1.3 per cent, IT by 1.1 per cent and pharma by 0.9 per cent.

Among stocks, Indiabulls Housing Finance gained by 3.9 per cent, State Bank of India by 2.8 per cent, HDFC by 2.3 per cent, Zee Entertainment by 2.1 per cent and Bajaj Finserv by 1.9 per cent.

However, mining major Vedanta dropped by 4.6 per cent, Tata Steel by 4 per cent, Hindalco by 3.5 per cent and JSW Steel by 2.9 per cent. Pharma firm Cipla slipped by 1.8 per cent.

Meanwhile, Asian shares sank as US President Donald Trump on Friday imposed an additional 5 per cent duty on 550 billion dollars of Chinese goods in the latest trade war escalation by the world's two largest economies.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan still shed 2 per cent while Japan's Nikkei lost 2.3 per cent. Shanghai blue chips fell by 1.2 per cent as China's yuan slumped to a fresh 11-year low against the dollar.

.