Mumbai: Equity benchmark indices extended morning losses around noon on Thursday tracking global cues as both US and Asian markets fell on less-than-expected dovish remarks from the US Fed Reserve.
At 12:15 pm, the BSE S&P Sensex was down 485 points or 1.34 per cent at 36,996 while the Nifty 50 edged lower 108 points to 10,978.
At the National Stock Exchange, all sectoral indices were in the red with Nifty media down by 2.9 per cent, metal by 2.8 per cent, PSU bank by 2 per cent and pharma by 1.8 per cent.
Among stocks, Coffee Day Enterprises plunged another 10 per cent for the third day in a row and traded at Rs 110.95 per share, a day after Cafe Coffee Day founder V G Siddhartha’s body was found near the Netravathi river in Mangaluru.
Zee Entertainment was down by 4.8 per cent at Rs 344.10 per share, Vedanta by 4.7 per cent, JSW Steel by 4.2 per cent, Tata Motors by 4.1 per cent and Hindalco by 3.7 per cent.
However, Bharti Infratel by 3 per cent. Power Grid, Wipro, Bajaj Finserv and Maruti showed marginal gains.
Meanwhile, Asian shares fell to six-week lows as the US Federal Reserve cut interest rates by 25 basis points for the first time in a decade but signalled that this will not be a long chain of cuts.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan faltered 0.6 per cent. Japan’s Nikkei reversed early losses and were slightly higher. Losses in Chinese shares accelerated after it opened lower with the blue-chip index down 0.8 per cent.