Equity indices witness volatile trading, telecom stocks drag

Equities witnessed volatile trading during early hours on Thursday with broad parameters in the negative zone as Asian stocks fell after soft Chinese economic data.

On the domestic front, official data showed that retail inflation climbed to a 16-month high of 4.62 per cent in October.

At 10:15 am, the BSE S & P Sensex was down by 17 points at 40,099 while the Nifty 50 edged lower by 13 points to 11,827. Except for Nifty auto and media, all sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the negative terrain.

Among stocks, Bharti Infratel fell by 7.2 per cent at Rs 202.50 per share while Bharti Airtel was down by 3.1 per cent. IndusInd Bank slipped by 3.5 per cent, State Bank of India by 1.3 per cent, Tata Motors by 2 per cent and Britannia by 1.6 per cent.

Metal majors of JSW Steel and Hindalco too suffered a loss of 1.5 per cent and 1.4 per cent each. However, those which showed marginal gains were Yes Bank, Infosys, Eicher Motors, Titan and Maruti.

Meanwhile, Asian stocks fell after soft Chinese economic data showed the trade war between Beijing and Washington hitting growth in the world's second-largest economy.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan drifted into positive territory in morning trade but turned negative later to trade 0.4 per cent lower. Japan's Nikkei stock index dropped by 0.6 per cent while Shanghai blue chips turned from positive to flat.

China's industrial production growth slowed sharply in October, rising by only 4.7 per cent year-on-year, while retail sales also slowed to fall short of expectations and investment growth hit a record low.