Metal and mining stocks decline

Stocks weakened further in early afternoon trade. At 12:27 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was down 292.41 points or 0.82% at 35,583.81. The Nifty 50 index was down 101 points or 0.94% at 10,645.05. Shares of index heavyweight HDFC dropped. Metal and mining stocks declined. Sentiment was impacted by negative Asian stocks.

Domestic stocks edged lower in early trade on negative Asian stocks. Key indices extended fall in morning trade. Fresh selling in index pivotals dragged the key indices lower in mid-morning trade.

The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index was down 1.5%. The S&P BSE Small-Cap index was down 0.9%. Both these indices underperformed the Sensex.

The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was weak. On the BSE, 718 shares rose and 1497 shares fell. A total of 116 shares were unchanged.

Shares of index heavyweight HDFC dropped 1.65% to Rs 1,869.75

HCL Technologies (HCL) fell 1.25%. HCL announced a collaboration with IBM designed to help advance the hybrid cloud journeys of organizations worldwide. HCL announced new re-platforming and refactoring services to enable enterprises to build and migrate applications to IBM Cloud Private from within the company's HCL Cloud Native Labs. The services will be orchestrated and available from HCL's Cloud Native Labs in London, New York, and Noida, later this year. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 14 February 2018.

Metal and mining stocks declined. Vedanta (down 2.87%), JSW Steel (down 4.23%), Tata Steel (down 3.42%), Steel Authority of India (Sail) (down 2.92%), Hindustan Zinc (down 0.67%), Jindal Steel & Power (down 2.77%), Hindalco Industries (down 3.5%), NMDC (down 1.61%), Hindustan Copper (down 3.21%) edged lower. National Aluminium Company (up 1.46%) rose.

Overseas, Asian stocks slipped on Friday as traders awaited the conclusion of U.S.-China talks in Beijing.

Traders are waiting for results of a meeting on Friday between the Trump administration's top two negotiators and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. There has been no decision to extend a March 1 US deadline for a deal, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow reportedly said on Thursday.

U.S. stocks closed mostly lower Thursday as disappointment over weak retail sales overshadowed optimism over U.S.-China trade talks, but the Nasdaq eked out gains to rise for a fifth session in a row. U.S. retail sales fell by 1.2% in December, the largest single-month decline since 2009. The U.S. producer-price index fell by 0.1% in January.

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