Equities trade gap down, Adani Ports tumbles

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], June 17 : Equity benchmark indices traded lower during early hours on Thursday tracking losses across Asian peers, a day after the US Federal Reserve projected at least two interest rate hikes in 2023.
At 10:15 am, the BSE S&P Sensex was down by 125 points or 0.24 per cent at 52,377 while the Nifty 50 slipped by 43 points or 0.27 per cent to 15,724.
Except for Nifty realty, all sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the negative territory with Nifty metal and financial service down by 0.7 per cent, private bank by 0.6 per cent and auto by 0.3 per cent.
Among stocks, Adani Ports tumbled by 2.1 per cent to Rs 691.70 per share. Axis Bank dipped by 0.9 per cent, ICICI Bank by 0.8 per cent and HDFC Bank by 0.7 per cent.
HDFC, Bajaj Finance, Hindalco, Hero MotoCorp and Maruti Suzuki also traded lower with slim margins.
However, Reliance Industries gained by 0.6 per cent to Rs 2,224.60 per share. Nestle India, Asian Paints, Eicher Motors and Tata Steel too traded in the green.
Meanwhile, Asian equities fell to a three-week low after the US Fed Reserve stunned investors by signalling it might raise interest rates at a much faster pace than assumed.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan was down about 0.6 per cent to its lowest since late May.
Japan's Nikkei fell 1 per cent and S&P 500 futures were 0.4 per cent lower in Asian trade.