Stocks trade lower in narrow range, banking and metal stocks suffer

Equity benchmark indices moved in a narrow range during early hours on Thursday as investors seemed to be cautious ahead of Q2 corporate earning announcements.

At 10:15 am, the BSE S & P Sensex was down by 105 points at 38,073 while the Nifty 50 edged lower by 29 points to 11,285. Except for IT, all sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the negative zone.

Among stocks, Yes Bank was down by 4.4 per cent at Rs 41.35 per share. State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, Tata Motors, Tata Steel and Hindalco too were in the red by over 2 per cent each.

However, Grasim gained by 4.8 per cent, Bharti Airtel by 3.7 per cent and index heavyweight Reliance Industries by 2.6 per cent. IT majors Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services and Tech Mahindra showed marginal gains.

Meanwhile, Asian indices traded marginally higher as market participants watched for developments on the US-China trade front ahead of high-level negotiations.

Markets in Taiwan were closed on Thursday for a holiday but Japan's Nikkei gained by 0.3 per cent and Shanghai shares rose by 0.35 per cent.

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