Mumbai, April 24 (ANI): Equity benchmark indices were in the negative zone during early hours on Friday tracking trends in Asian markets as investors awaited government efforts on another stimulus package to shore up economic activity in the wake of COVID-19 lockdown.
At 10:15 am, the BSE S&P Sensex was down by 420 points or 1.32 per cent at 31,443 while the Nifty 50 edged lower by 123 points at 9,191. Except for Nifty pharma which moved up by 1.3 per cent, all sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the red with Nifty financial service by 2.8 per cent, private bank by 2.7 per cent and realty by 2.3 per cent.
Among stocks, Zee Entertainment lost by 6 per cent to Rs 148.25, a day after closing 3.7 per cent higher after Florida Retirement System (FRS) reportedly bought over half a per cent stake in the company.
Bajaj Finance and Bajaj Finserve were down by 5.2 per cent and 3.6 per cent respectively. Private lenders ICICI Bank slipped by 4.4 per cent, IndusInd Bank by 4 per cent, Axis Bank by 3.6 per cent and HDFC Bank by 2.6 per cent.
However, Larsen & Toubro, Cipla, Hero MotoCorp, Coal India and Britannia traded with a positive bias. Meanwhile, Asian shares fell on doubts about progress in the development of drugs to treat COVID-19 and new evidence of US economic damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan was down by 0.4 per cent while shares in China fell by 0.25 per cent. In Japan, shares in the Nikkei stock index slid by 0.86 per cent while shares in South Korea fell by 0.76 per cent.
