Stock markets continue to slide down, Nifty below 11,330

Equity benchmark indices extended their fall for a fourth consecutive trading session this week and traded lower in the early hours on Thursday.

Except IT and Media, all sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the negative zone.

At 10:15 am, the BSE S & P Sensex was down 117 points at 37,670 while the Nifty 50 slipped 33 points to 11,327.

Heavyweight Reliance Industries slipped 2.4 per cent, largely due to unstable crude oil prices globally. Bharat Petroleum Corporation and power utility major NTPC also shed over 2 per cent.

The other losers included Adani Ports, Bharti Infratel, Dr Reddy and Grasim.

Some IT stocks, however, showed some gains. They included Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro and Tech Mahindra.

Shares of Zee Entertainment, Indiabulls Housing Finance, Hero MotorCorp, Britannia and Yes Bank also showed marginal gains.

Meanwhile, Asian stocks traded on a low note with an escalation in trade tariff talks between the United States and China -- the world's two largest economies. Investors said the negotiations could alter the direction of the global economy.

US President Donald Trump kept up his hard-line rhetoric, saying China broke the deal and will pay tariffs on 200 billion dollars worth of Chinese goods. "It will all work out," he said in comments to supporters at a rally on Wednesday.

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