Sensex drops over 500 points to open at 64,979, Nifty in red at 19,375

Equity benchmark indices declined in early trade on Wednesday, extending their previous day’s fall, in line with weak global market trends and unabated foreign fund outflows.

The 30-share BSE Sensex plunged 533.13 points to 64,978.97. The Nifty declined 153.35 points to 19,375.40. Among the Sensex firms, NTPC, Axis Bank, IndusInd Bank, Maruti, UltraTech Cement, ICICI Bank, Tata Steel and Bajaj Finserv were the major laggards.

Nestle, Hindustan Unilever, HDFC Bank and Asian Paints were among the gainers.

In Asian markets, Seoul, Tokyo and Hong Kong were trading lower while Shanghai quoted in the positive territory.

The US markets ended with over 1 per cent fall on Tuesday.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth ₹2,034.14 crore on Tuesday, according to exchange data.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude declined 0.10 per cent to USD 90.83 a barrel.

“Global cues are negative for markets in the near-term. The sustained rise in the US bond yields, which has triggered continuous FII selling, is showing no signs of abating. The dollar index is now clearly above 107 and the US 10-year bond yield is at 4.83 per cent. This means FIIs will continue to sell and the bulls will be on the back foot,” said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

He further said that on the positive side, valuations in some segments are becoming attractive and this may push DIIs (Domestic Institutional Investors) and retail investors to buy stocks in such segments.

The BSE benchmark had declined 316.31 points or 0.48 per cent to settle at 65,512.10 on Tuesday. The Nifty fell 109.55 points or 0.56 per cent to end at 19,528.75.

“Markets may continue to exhibit intra-day volatility ahead of the monetary policy announcement on Friday. The real culprit over the current pessimism is FII selling,” Prashanth Tapse, Senior VP (Research), Mehta Equities Ltd, said.