Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], April 19 (ANI): Equity benchmark indices traded substantially lower during early hours on Monday as the country continued to report a record spike in daily Covid-19 cases.At 10:15 am, the BSE SP Sensex was down by 1,148 points or 2.35 per cent lower at 47,684 while the Nifty 50 dipped by 329 points or 2.25 per cent to 14,289.

Except for Nifty pharma, all sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the red zone with Nifty PSU bank crashing by 5.2 per cent, private bank by 4.4 per cent, financial service by 4 per cent, realty by 4.3 per cent and auto by 3.4 per cent.

Among stocks, Axix Bank and ICICI Bank moved down by 5.2 per cent each while Kotak Mahindra Bank cracked by 4.8 per cent and IndusInd Bank by 4.6 per cent.

State Bank of India was down by 4.3 per cent to Rs 325.25 per share and Punjab National Bank by 5.6 per cent to Rs 32.90.

Bajaj Finance, HDFC, Bajaj Auto, Adani Ports and Tata Motors too traded over 3.6 per cent lower. However, pharma majors Cipla and Dr Reddy's were up by 1.3 per cent and 1.1 per cent respectively.

Meanwhile, Asian shares hovered near one-and-a-half week highs helped by expectations monetary policy will remain accommodative the world over. Covid-19 vaccine rollouts also helped eased fears of another dangerous wave of coronavirus infections.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan jumped 1.2 per cent last week and is up 5 per cent so far this year.

South Korea's Kospi added 0.4 per cent while Japan's Nikkei eased 0.4 per cent. (ANI)