Stocks subdued in early trading, Yes Bank gains by 2.4 pc

Mumbai: Equity benchmark indices witnessed choppy trading during early hours on Monday but were largely flat in line with Asian peers.

At 10:15 am, the BSE S&P Sensex was up by 17 points at 40,341 while the Nifty 50 gained by 7 points to 11,902. Except for Nifty IT and pharma, all sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the green with thin margins.

Among stocks, however, Yes Bank gained by 2.4 percent to Rs 70.60 per share. Others that showed profits were Zee Entertainment, IndianOil Corporation, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Mahindra & Mahindra.

However, Bharti Infratel, Sun Pharma, Grasim, Cipla, and GAIL were down by 1.1 to 1.6 percent each.

Meanwhile, Asian shares reversed early gains as fresh violence broke out in Hong Kong while uncertainty still remained over an on-going trade war between the United States and China.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index led the losses and was down by more than 1 percent after police fired live rounds at protestors on the eastern side of Hong Kong island.

Chinese blue-chip CSI300 index was down 0.6 percent, South Korea’s lost by 0.7 percent and Japan’s gave up early gains to drift away from a recent 13-month high.

Market attention was also on the US-China trade talks after President Donald Trump said on Saturday that talks with China had moved more slowly than he would have liked, but added that Beijing wanted a deal more than he did.