Mumbai: Equity benchmark indices opened higher on Thursday but continued their downward march in the afternoon session to wind up with marginal losses. The BSE S&P Sensex closed 80 points lower at 36,644 while the Nifty 50 edged lower by 3 points to 10,848.
At the National Stock Exchange, sectoral indices were mixed. Nifty metal gained by 2.6 per cent, auto by 2 per cent and pharma by 1.3 per cent. But realty, FMCG, private bank and IT were in the red.
Among stocks, HDFC and Indiabulls Housing Finance lost by 2.8 per cent and 2.2 per cent respectively. Private lenders ICICI Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank shed 2.2 per cent and 1.2 per cent while FMCG major Hindustan Lever dipped by 0.9 per cent.
IT majors Tata Consultancy Services, Tech Mahindra and HCL Tech also lost by over 1 per cent each. However, Tata Motors climbed over 8 per cent on reports that its British arm Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) plans to launch 30 new or revamped vehicles in China in the next two years.
Maruti Suzuki was up by 2.5 per cent after Union Road Transport and Highway Minister Nitin Gadkari said at the 59th annual SIAM Convention that he will recommend a reduction of Goods and Services Tax to help the auto sector come out of a prolonged slump. He also said that India will not ban petrol and diesel vehicles.
Coal India gained by 7.3 per cent after signing MoUs with two Russian entities in the areas of coking coal mining in the Russian Far East and Arctic Region. The other prominent gainers were public sector ONGC, Bharat Petroleum, Indian Oil, NTPC and GAIL.
Meanwhile, Asian stocks shot up after China announced another round of trade talks with the United States next month. The development came amid fears of an escalating trade war that could trigger a global economic recession.
Japan's Nikkei gained by 2.12 per cent while South Korea's KOSPI moved up by 0.82 per cent and Shanghai Composite Index edged 0.96 per cent higher.
The United States plans to increase the tariff rate to 30 per cent from the 25 per cent duty already in place on 250 billion dollars worth of Chinese imports from October 1.
