Equity gauges flat in volatile trading, auto stocks lose further

Equity benchmark indices were largely flat during early hours on Wednesday despite positive global cues as crude oil prices cooled.

At 10:15 am, the BSE S&P Sensex was up by 19 points to 36,500 while the Nifty 50 was down by 7 points to 10,811.

At the National Stock Exchange, sectoral indices were mixed with Nifty auto down by 0.9 per cent FMCG by 0.3 per cent and pharma by 0.1 per cent. Nifty bank, financial service, IT, media and metal showed small gains.

Auto majors traded with a bearish bias and Maruti down by 1.5 per cent, Hero MotoCorp by 0.8 per cent, Eicher Motors by 0.7 per cent and Bajaj Auto by 0.4 per cent.

Britannia lost by 2.8 per cent while UPL was down by 2.7 per cent. The other prominent losers were Cipla, Coal India, Hindustan Lever and NTPC.

However, those which showed marginal gains were Bajaj Finance, Bajaj Finserv, Tata Steel, JSW Steel, Reliance Industries and Vedanta. Government-owned oil marketing firms Bharat Petroleum Corporation and IndianOil Corporation too were in the green.

Meanwhile, Asian markets were mixed as oil prices cooled after Saudi Arabia said full oil production will be restored by month's end.

A day earlier, investor sentiment had taken a beating following Saturday's attack on Saudi oil facilities which halved the kingdom's oil output, creating the biggest disruption to global oil supplies in absolute terms since 1979,

On Wednesday, MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan was up by 0.13 per cent while Japan's Nikkei was flat.

Investors also awaited announcements on an expected interest rate cut from the US Federal Reserve and the next round of US-China trade talks later this week.