As poll day starts stock markets slip over corporate earnings

Stock markets opened with negative sentiments on Thursday as traders continued to operate in wait-and-watch mode and awaited the March quarter corporate earnings. At 10:15 am, the BSE S&P Sensex was down 37 points at 38,548 while the NSE Nifty 50 shed 13 points to 11,578.

At the National Stock Exchange, all sectoral indices were in the negative zone except autos, financial services, FMCG, IT and reality. Vedanta lost 1.6 per cent. Zee Entertainment, Infosys, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Adani Ports also traded in the negative territory.

However, the early gainers were Indian Oil which moved up 2.7 per cent and Bharti Airtel by nearly 2 per cent. Indiabulls Housing Finance, Bharat Petroleum and GAIL also showed over 1 per cent gain. Meanwhile, Asian stocks were in the red amid worries over the global economic outlook and trade protectionism.

The International Monetary Fund cut its global growth outlook to 3.3 per cent in 2019, the lowest since the financial crisis in 2008. And US President Donald Trump has threatened new tariffs on goods from the European Union even as the US-China trade dispute remains unresolved.