Mumbai, May 20 (IANS): Fears over an economic slowdown as well as negative global cues subdued India's benchmark stock indices during the afternoon trade session on Thursday.

At 1.20 p.m., the S&P BSE Sensex traded at 49,841.92, lower by 60.72 points, or 0.12 per cent, from its previous close.

Similarly, the Nifty50 of the National Stock Exchange traded at 14,988.55, down by 41.60 points, or 0.28 per cent, from its previous close.

Besides, both the key indices started on a positive note with a gap up opening, however, ceding their initial gains soon afterwards.

Globally, most of the Asian stock markets traded in the red.

Sector-wise, losses were witnessed in the Metals, FMCG, IT, Auto and Banking space whereas Realty, Media, Financial Services continue to trade in the positive territory.

On the domestic front, Nifty opened flat to negative and has been moving downwards since its opening levels.

"Despite the corrective move, market breadth continues to strongly be in favour of the advancing counters. Currently, Nifty is retesting the breakout line of the 'Falling Channel' on daily chart and holding above the same," said Jay Purohit, Technical & Derivatives Analyst, MOFSL.

"The ongoing correction of last two sessions shall be used as a buying opportunity as this is mere a corrective move within an uptrend. Going forward, resistance can be seen around 15300 whereas support is placed at 14900 and then 14700 levels."

According to Gaurav Garg, Head of Reserach at CapitalVia Global Research: "In morning trades, Indian equity indices continued their lackluster performance ahead of the weekly expiration of index futures and option contracts."

"US market decline further Federal Reserve participants agreed that the US economy remained far from the Central bank's target. Asian markets were mostly trading in red following the global peers."