Equity indices volatile, IT stocks gain

Equity benchmark indices oscillated in a range but were largely flat during early hours on Monday while Asian market remained buoyed by the progress in US-China trade talks and on the Brexit front.

At 10:15 am, the BSE S & P Sensex was up by 33 points to 41,043 while the Nifty 50 gained by 6 points at 12,093. Except for Nifty IT, pharma and realty, all sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the negative zone.

Among stocks, those which lost were Adani Ports, Sun Pharma, IndianOil Corporation, JSW Steel and Yes Bank.

However, IT stocks were up with HCL Technologies gaining by 1.4 per cent to Rs 550.80 per share. Tech Mahindra ticked up by 1.2 per cent and Tata Consultancy Services by 0.9 per cent.

Meanwhile, Asian shares moved higher as investors welcomed a trade agreement between Beijing and Washington over the weekend. But the enthusiasm was capped by lingering scepticism about ongoing relations between China and the United States.

Still, that helped push the MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan up by 0.27 per cent while shares in Taiwan and South Korea added about 0.1 per cent.

But Japan's Nikkei 225 succumbed to profit-taking, easing by 0.14 per cent after surging 2.55 per cent to a 14-month closing high on Friday.

The phase one agreement suspended a threatened round of US tariffs on a 160 billion dollar list of Chinese imports that were scheduled to take effect on Sunday. The United States also agreed to halve the tariff rate to 7.5 per cent on 120 billion dollars worth of Chinese goods.