Metal and mining stocks decline

Stocks traded a tad below the flat line in early afternoon trade. At 12:24 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was down 22.06 points or 0.06% at 38,563.29. The Nifty 50 index was down 4.65 points or 0.04% at 11,579.65.

Investors are awaiting Q4 March 2019 earnings from India Inc which kick off from tomorrow, 12 April 2019. Voting for the first phase of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections is being held today.

Key indices were trading near flat line in early trade. Indices were trading with small gains in morning trade. Stocks hovered in a small range in mid-morning trade amid divergent trend in index pivotals.

The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index was off 0.01%. The S&P BSE Small-Cap index was up 0.01%.

The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was negative. On the BSE, 988 shares rose and 1227 shares fell. A total of 160 shares were unchanged.

Infosys dropped 1.33% ahead of its Q4 March 2019 results tomorrow, 12 April 2019.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) fell 0.98% ahead of its Q4 March 2019 results tomorrow, 12 April 2019. TCS announced that it has partnered with Google Cloud to build industry-specific cloud solutions that will help organizations accelerate their digital transformation and leverage data-driven insights that power superior customer experiences. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 10 April 2019.

Metal and mining stocks fell. Vedanta (down 3.77%), JSW Steel (down 0.54%), Tata Steel (down 0.28%), Steel Authority of India (Sail) (down 1.38%), National Aluminium Company (down 2.13%), Hindustan Zinc (down 0.23%), Jindal Steel & Power (down 3.2%), Hindalco Industries (down 0.03%), Hindustan Copper (down 0.3%) edged lower.

NMDC shed 0.19%. NMDC said its sales fell 13.49% to 3.59 million tonne in March 2019 compared with 4.15 million tonne in March 2018. Production fell 5.16% to 4.04 million tonne in March 2019 compared with 4.26 million tonne in March 2018. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 10 April 2019.

On the political front, voting for the first phase of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections is being held today. Voting will take place in 91 Lok Sabha seats in 20 states and Union territories today. Elections will be held in seven phases from 11 April 2019 to 19 May 2019 and counting will take place on 23 May 2019.

Overseas, Asian stocks were trading lower after a dovish turn by the European Central Bank and milder than expected US inflation.

In US, technology stocks led Wall Street slightly higher on Wednesday, as US inflation data proved to be benign and the minutes from the Federal Reserve's March meeting were unsurprising.

The Federal Reserve is likely to leave interest rates unchanged this year given risks to the US economy from a global slowdown and uncertainty over trade policies and financial conditions, according to the minutes from its March 19-20 policy meeting.

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