Equities erase early gains as New Delhi, Telangana see fresh coronavirus cases

The last hour of trading at bourses wiped out all early gains on Monday as the government confirmed two fresh cases of coronavirus in India -- one in New Delhi and another in Telangana.

The BSE S & P Sensex opened at 38,911, saw a high of 39,083 and a low of 37,786 but closed 153 points or 0.4 per cent lower from its previous close at 38,144.

The Nifty 50 closed 69 points lower at 11,133. Except for Nifty IT, all sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the red with Nifty PSU bank plunging by 4.5 per cent, metal by 2.1 per cent FMCG by 0.58 per cent.

 

Among stocks, Yes Bank closed 6.6 per cent lower at Rs 32.30 per share while State Bank of India was down by 5 per cent. Auto majors Hero MotoCorp, Bajaj Auto and Tata Motors slipped by 3.7 per cent, 3.2 per cent and 2.9 per cent respectively while metal giants Tata Steel and Hindalco cracked by 4.6 per cent and 2.8 per cent.

The other prominent losers were GAIL, Bharat Petroleum Corporation and ONGC.

However, Eicher Motors and HCL Technologies gained by 2.4 per cent each while FMCG major Nestle India was up by 2.2 per cent.

ICICI Bank, Tech Mahindra, Mahindra & Mahindra, Infosys and Cipla traded with a positive bias.

Meanwhile, Asian shares steadied as investors placed their hopes on a coordinated global monetary policy response to contain the damaging economic impact of coronavirus epidemic.

Reports said pandemic fears wiped more than 5 trillion dollars from global share value last week.

Japan's Nikkei climbed up by 0.95 per cent while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index added gains of 0.62 per cent and South Korea's Kospi was up by 0.78 per cent.

The Shanghai composite index shot up by a whopping 3.15 per cent.