Negative global cues cause equity benchmarks to slip; metal stocks most hit

 Mumbai: Equity benchmarks slipped during early hours on Tuesday due to negative global cues after US President Donald Trump said that he will reinstate tariffs on the United States steel and aluminium imports from Brazil and Argentina.

At 10:15am, the BSE S&P Sensex was down by 71 points to 40,731 while the Nifty 50 edged lower by 35 points at 12,014. Except for Nifty auto and FMCG, all sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the negative terrain with Nifty metal plunging by 1.76%.  Among stocks, Tata Steel and JSW Steel dived by 3% each while Vedanta was down by 2.5% and Hindalco by 2.3%. 

 Bharti Infratel lost by 5.5% to Rs 250.80 per share. The other prominent losers were Bharti Airtel, Yes Bank, IndusInd Bank, Grasim and ONGC.

 However, auto scrips showed gains with Bajaj Auto moving up by 1.2%, Maruti by 0.9 % and Hero MotoCorp by 0.7%. Britannia, Titan, State Bank of India and Kotak Mahindra Bank gained marginally. 

 Meanwhile, Asian shares tumbled on Tuesday after Trump said he will impose tariffs against imports from Brazil and Argentina, recharging fears about global trade tensions, while weak US factory data added to the gloom.

 MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan was down by 0.37 % and China's blue-chip CSI 300 index fell as much as 0.62% before moving back to end the morning session flat. Japan's Nikkei shed 0.61%. 

• metal stocks
• JSW
• Tata Steel