Metal and auto stocks drag equity indices down amid coronavirus fears

Equities witnessed selling across the board during early hours on Monday as the number of coronavirus cases outside China increased and concern grew that global economic growth could take a hit.

At 10:15 am, the BSE S & P Sensex was down by 392 points or 0.95 per cent to 40,778 while the Nifty 50 dropped by 127 points at 11,954.

Except for Nifty IT, all sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the negative zone with Nifty metal plunging by 3.1 per cent, pharma by 1.7 per cent and auto by 1.6 per cent.

Among stocks, Hindalco suffered the most with a fall of 5.5 per cent at Rs 179.55 per share. Tata Steel dropped by 3.8 per cent, JSW Steel by 3.4 per cent and Vedanta by 3.3 per cent.

Auto stocks too took a dip with Tata Motors slipping by 2.6 per cent, Eicher Motors by 2.3 per cent and Maruti by 2 per cent. ITC, ICICI Bank and HDFC slipped by nearly 2 per cent each.

However, IT major gained with Infosys up by 1.4 per cent at Rs 808,45 per share. Tech Mahindra, Tata Consultancy Service and Wipro witnessed marginal gains.

Meanwhile, Asian shares and oil prices slid as the spread of the coronavirus outside China darkened outlook for world growth.

South Korea's Kospi index fell about 3 per cent while Chinese shares opened down with the blue-chip CSI300 index easing by 0.6 per cent.

That left MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan off by 1.6 per cent at its lowest since early February. Japanese markets were closed for a public holiday.

South Korea put the country on high alert while the number of infections jumped to over 700 and deaths rose to seven. In Italy, three deaths were reported while the number of cases jumped to above 150.

Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Turkey and Afghanistan imposed travel and immigration restrictions as fears mounted that the coronavirus outbreak in China will grow into a pandemic with deadly consequences for countries around the world.

The virus has killed 2,442 people in China, which has reported 76,936 cases, and put brakes on the world's second largest economy.