Mumbai: Equity benchmark indices drifted lower by half percent on Friday, dragged by IT and banking stocks amid continuing global concerns over the US-China trade deal.
The BSE S&P Sensex closed 216 points or 0.53 percent lower at 40,359 while the Nifty 50 slipped by 54 points to 11,914. Sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were mixed with Nifty IT dropping by 1.9 percent and bank by 0.7 percent.
Among stocks, Infosys lost by 2.8 percent to close at Rs 692.95 per share. Tata Consultancy Services ticked down by 2.4 percent, Wipro by 1.8 percent, HCL Technologies by 1.6 percent and Tech Mahindra by 1.5 percent.
Bharti Infratel lost by over 4 percent while Bharti Airtel showed a loss of 1.8 percent. Even Kotak Mahindra Bank closed 1.6 percent lower.
However, metal majors showed handsome gains with Tata Steel moving up by 4.2 percent, JSW Steel by 2.4 percent and Vedanta by 2.2 percent.
Meanwhile, Asian equities posted mild gains amid persistent worries over the status of trade negotiations between China and the United States.
Japan’s Nikkei was up by 0.33 percent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng by 0.48 percent and South Korea’s Kospi by 0.26 percent.