Markets Open In Red As Sensex Plunges Over 1,000 Points, Nifty Down To 17,200

Indian shares dropped early on Monday, hammered by a crash in IT stocks after Infosys slid 9% on missing March-quarter profit estimates.

The NSE Nifty 50 index was down 1.54% at 17,197.65, as of 0350 GMT, while the S&P BSE Sensex fell 1.76% to 57,320.61. Both the indexes had posted weekly losses of more than 1.5% each, last week.

Stock markets in India were closed on Thursday and Friday for public holidays.

India’s number two software services provider Infosys slumped as much as 9.1% to an eight-month low and was the top drag on the Nifty 50 index.

The firm’s consolidated net profit for the March quarter was 56.86 billion rupees ($744.24 million), lower than analysts’ expectation of 59.80 billion rupees.

Nifty’s IT sub-index declined the most among major sub-indexes and was down nearly 4%.

Meanwhile, several markets in Asia and Europe were closed on account of Easter on Monday. U.S. equity futures, however, declined amid a deepening crisis in Ukraine.