Sensex above 500 points in early trade, Nifty below 16,450
Equity benchmark indices extended their fall for the third day running on Tuesday, with the BSE Sensex falling over 559 points in early trade as foreign fund outflows and crude oil prices continued to slide ahead of the RBI’s policy decision on Wednesday.
The 30-share BSE Sensex was trading at 55,115.86, down 559.46 points. The broader NSE Nifty fell 161.05 points to 16,408.50.
From the Sensex pack, Titan, Dr Reddy’s, HUL, Asian Paints, Nestle, Sun Pharma, Maruti and Kotak Mahindra Bank were the biggest laggards. Conversely, NTPC and Reliance Industries were among the gainers.
Elsewhere in Asia, markets in Tokyo and Shanghai were trading in the green, while Hong Kong and Seoul were trading lower. US stock markets closed with gains on Monday.
“Two key figures coming out this week are important – RBI rate hike expected tomorrow and US inflation rate on Friday. The market direction is likely to be more influenced by inflation in the US, which in turn will decide whether How far is the Fed going in raising rates, said VK Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Financial Services. This will be a major determinant of potential ‘risk’ or ‘risk-off’ in equity markets globally.”
On Monday, the Sensex closed at 55,675.32, down 93.91 points or 0.17 per cent. Nifty closed 14.75 points or 0.09 per cent lower at 16,569.55.
Meanwhile, international oil benchmark Brent crude jumped 0.69 per cent to $120.33 a barrel.
Foreign institutional investors offloaded shares worth a net Rs 2,397.65 crore on Monday, according to stock exchange data.