Equity indices trade flat, banking stocks under pressure

Equity benchmark indices traded flat during early hours on Friday on the back of mixed cues from their Asian peers.

At 10:15 am, the BSE S-P Sensex was up by 119 points or 0.24 per cent at 49,865 while the Nifty 50 edged higher by 35 points or 0.24 per cent to 14,909.

Sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were mixed with Nifty private bank down by 0.5 per cent and financial service by 0.3 per cent.

But Nifty PSU bank rose by 2.9 per cent and pharma by 1 per cent.

Among stocks, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and IndusInd Bank traded half a per cent lower while Bajaj Finance lost by 1.7 per cent to Rs 4,943.20 per share.

UPL, Asian Paints, SBI Life and IndianOil Corporation too were in the negative zone.