Sensex hovers around 57K mark, IT stocks in focus

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], August 31 : Equity benchmark indices lay flat during early hours on Tuesday but traders showed buying interest in IT scrips.
At 10:15 am, the BSE S&P Sensex was up by 99 points or 0.17 per cent at 56,988 while the Nifty 50 rose by 23 points or 0.13 per cent to 16,954.
Sectoral indices were mixed with Nifty IT up by 0.6 per cent. But Nifty auto, metal, pharma and bank were in the red.
Among stocks, HCL Technologies advanced by 0.5 per cent to Rs 1,169.20 per share while Tata Consultancy Services rose by 0.4 per cent and Tech Mahindra by 0.6 per cent.
The other major gainers were Bharti Airtel which gained by 2.3 per cent, Asian Paints, Adani Ports, Sun Pharma, Eicher Motors and Tata Steel.
But auto majors Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra and Hero MotoCorp skidded by thin margins along with Reliance Industries and State Bank of India.
Meanwhile, Asia stock markets opened lower despite fresh all-time highs on Wall Street as worries about China's slowing economic growth and regulatory changes weighed on investor sentiment.
MSCI's gauge of Asia Pacific stocks outside Japan slipped 0.25 per cent while Japan's Nikkei fell more than 0.3 per cent in the morning session.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng index and China's benchmark CSI300 index opened down 0.1 per cent and 0.2 per cent respectively.