Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], Feb 27 (ANI): Equity benchmark indices continued to take a beating during early hours on Thursday on the back of weak global cues accentuated by coronavirus as investors sought safety in gold and bonds.

At 10:15 am, the BSE SP Sensex was down by 385 points or 0.96 per cent to 39,504 while the Nifty 50 slipped by 117 points at 11,561.

All sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the red with Nifty realty down by 2.47 per cent, IT by 1.44 per cent, metal by 1.35 per cent and auto by 1.19 per cent.

Among stocks, JSW steel fell by 2.6 per cent at Rs 254 per share while Vedanta lost by 1.3 per cent to Rs 128.55.

Pharma major Cipla were down by 2.5 per cent as IT giants HCL Technologies, Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services dropped by 1.8 per cent, 1.7 per cent and 1.5 per cent respectively.

MahindraMahindra, Grasim, GAIL and IndusInd Bank too traded with a negative bias.

However, shares of Yes Bank surged by 2.2 per cent at Rs 37.35 apiece. The others which showed marginal gains were Titan, LarsenToubro, NTPC and Sun Pharma.

Meanwhile, Asian share and oil markets extended losses as the rapid global spread of the coronavirus kept investors edgy.

Reports said rising fears of a pandemic had already wiped more than 3.6 trillion dollars from global stock markets by Wednesday's close.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan fell by 0.5 per cent on Thursday morning. Japan's Nikkei fell by 1.7 per cent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell by 1 per cent. (ANI)