Equity benchmark indices witnessed profit booking and closed in the negative zone on Monday amid concerns over the impact of coronavirus on supply chains and global economy. The BSE S&P Sensex closed 162 points lower at 40,980 while the Nifty 50 slipped by 67 points at 12,032.
All sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange (NSE) were in the red with Nifty metal melting by 3 pt, auto by 2.5% and realty by 1%.
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Among stocks, Tata Steel dipped by 5.9% at Rs 443.15 per share while Hindalco was down by 3.2% at Rs 191 apiece. Auto stocks too slipped substantially with Mahindra & Mahindra down by 7.1% and Eicher Motors by 3.3%. The other prominent losers were Zee Entertainment, Grasim, Bharti Infratel, Coal India, Britannia and Yes Bank.
However, UPL, Bajaj Finance, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Reliance Industries and Hindustan Lever traded with a positive bias. Meanwhile, Asian stock markets traded lower amid ongoing virus outbreak’s impact on Chinese manufacturers. Reports said factories in China were set to return to work, but many are expected to remain shut for longer.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index slipped by 0.59%, the Nikkei 225 declined by 0.6% and South Korea’s Kospi also fell by 0.49%. More than 900 people have so far died in China’s central Hubei province with most of the new deaths in the provincial capital of Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak.
(With ANI Inputs)