Mumbai: Equity benchmark indices slipped by nearly half a per cent during early hours on Friday due to weakness in Asian peers and selling pressure led by banking and financial stocks.
At 10:15 am, the BSE S&P Sensex was down by 180 points or 0.47 per cent at 37,960 while the Nifty 50 slipped by 60 points or 0.53 per cent at 11,156.
Except for Nifty pharma which moved up by 0.4 per cent, all sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the red with Nifty financial service down by 1.7 per cent, private bank by 1.5 per cent, metal by 1 per cent and auto by 0.5 per cent.
Among stocks, home loan lender HDFC dipped by 2.7 per cent at Rs 1,824.65 per share while Axis Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and HDFC Bank lost by 2.5 per cent, 1.7 per cent and 1.6 per cent respectively.
The other prominent losers were Tata Consultancy Services, Hindalco, Coal India, Bharti Infratel and UPL. However, index heavyweight Reliance Industries advanced by 4.25 per cent to Rs 2,145.25 per share.
Sun Pharma and Dr Reddy’s were up by 3 per cent and 0.2 per cent while IT majors Wipro and Infosys showed marginal gains.
Meanwhile, Asian shares slipped from six-month peaks as US-China tensions soured. Chinese blue chips retreated by 2.9 per cent.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan lost by 1.3 per cent. Tokyo was closed for a holiday but Nikkei futures were trading 250 points below the cash close.