Sensex, Nifty pare losses; auto stocks lead

Indian equity benchmark indices BSE Sensex and NSE's Nifty 50 trimmed morning losses and traded marginally lower in the noon session on Wednesday. Muted sentiment in Asian peers over US-China trade concerns and weak corporate earnings weighed on the markets.

At 12:15 pm, the Sensex was down 49 points, or 0.13 percent, at 37,347.75, and the Nifty was trading lower by 17 points, or 0.15 percent, at 11,067.35. In the broader market, the Nifty Midcap 100 was trading higher by 0.33 percent while Nifty Smallcap 100 index was down 0.45 percent, respectively.

The Nifty Media was the worst-performing index followed by realty, financial services and IT.

Hero MotoCorp, YES Bank, IndusInd Bank, Sun Pharma and JSW Steel were the top gainers during the afternoon trade while Zee Entertainment, Axis Bank, Tech Mahindra, Bharti Infratel and Bharti Airtel were among the top losers.

Shares of coffee chain Coffee Day Enterprises hit a lower circuit of 20 percent for the second consecutive day on Wednesday after founder VG Siddhartha’s body was found early morning in Karnataka’s Netravathi River.

Punjab National Bank's share price fell about 6 percent, hitting its 52-week low, on Wednesday after the company reported an 11 percent jump in its net profit at Rs 284.50 crore for the June quarter but missed estimates.

Shares of Axis Bank fell nearly 7 percent on Wednesday after the private lender reported higher provisioning and slippages in the June quarter (Q1FY20).

Stocks in Asia traded lower on Wednesday afternoon amid dampened expectations for a resolution to the US-China trade war. Meanwhile, investors await the US Federal Reserve's announcement on the decision on interest rates this week. Overall, the MSCI Asia ex-Japan declined 0.64 percent.