Equities fall on coronavirus concerns, metal and auto stocks hit

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Equity benchmark indices floundered in the negative terrain during early hours on Tuesday amid concerns over the impact of coronavirus on global trade and subdued quarterly earnings.

At 10:15 am, the BSE S&P Sensex edged lower by 234 points or 0.57 per cent to 40,822 while the Nifty 50 tumbled by 81 points at 11,965. All sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the red with Nifty metal down by 1.6 per cent. Nifty auto, pharma, realty and PSU bank slipped by 1.1 per cent each.

Among stocks, metal major Vedanta was down by 2.2 per cent at Rs 138.95 per share while Tata Steel dipped by 1.8 per cent and Hindalco by 1.5 per cent. Tata Motors and Hero MotoCorp skidded by 1.9 per cent each while Yes Bank and IndusInd Bank fell by 5.5 per cent and 4.1 per cent respectively. Bharti Infratel, Britannia and ITC too traded with a negative bias. However, GAIL, Bharti Airtel, Eicher Motors and UltraTech Cement gained by thin margins.

Meanwhile, Asian shares fell and Wall Street retreated from record highs after Apple Inc said it will not meet its revenue guidance for the March quarter as the coronavirus outbreak slowed production and weakened demand in China.

The warning sobered investor optimism. MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan fell by 0.65 per cent while Tokyo's Nikkei slid by 1 per cent. Shanghai shares dipped by 0.2 per cent after having gained in nine of the past 10 sessions largely on hopes for policy support by Beijing.

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