Sensex, Nifty fall in early trade amid weak Asian equities

Pedestrians walk past the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) building, in Mumbai. File
| Photo Credit: PTI

Market benchmarks fell in early trade on Monday amid weak trend in other Asian equities.

After a weak beginning, the 30-share BSE Sensex further declined 463.1 points to 61,200.38. The broader NSE Nifty dipped 129.25 points to 18,178.40.

From the Sensex pack, Bajaj Finance, Mahindra & Mahindra, Bajaj Finserv, ITC, Reliance Industries, Tech Mahindra, HDFC, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services and Nestle were the major laggards.

Axis Bank, Bharti Airtel, Maruti, Hindustan Unilever and Tata Steel were the winners.

Elsewhere in Asia, markets in Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong were trading lower.

Wall Street had ended higher on Friday.

“There is a strong tailwind and a strong headwind which can sway the market now. The tailwind is the sharp decline in Brent crude to USD 86.75, which is a big macro positive for India. But this tailwind is unlikely to take the market higher since the headwind in the form of steadily declining momentum in the recent market uptrend is very strong,” said V.K. Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

The optimism driven by the recent decline is U.S. inflation has run its course and the market is likely to wait for further data on the direction of U.S. inflation and interest rates, Mr. Vijayakumar added.

The BSE benchmark declined 87.12 points or 0.14% to settle at 61,663.48 on Friday. The Nifty dipped 36.25 points or 0.20% to end at 18,307.65.

International oil benchmark Brent crude was trading 1.22% lower at $86.55 per barrel.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded shares worth ₹751.20 crore on Friday, as per exchange data.