Sensex drops 141 points in early trade on global sell-off, profit-booking

Mumbai, December 18

Breaking its five-day winning streak, the benchmark BSE Sensex fell 141 points in early trade on Tuesday, as banking, IT, realty and FMCG stocks retreated, tracking sell-off in global market.

The 30-share index dropped 140.51 points, or 0.40 per cent, to 36,129.56 points in opening trade. The gauge had rallied over 1,310 points in the previous five sessions.

The NSE Nifty, too, fell 47.50 points, or 0.44 per cent, to 10,840.85.

Among sectoral indices, IT fell the most 1.19 per cent, followed by tech 1.08 per cent, on account of appreciating domestic currency.

Meanwhile, FMCG, health care, banking and consumer durables also fell by up to 0.35 per cent as profit taking emerged on these counters.

Brokers said the decline in benchmark indices was on account of a weak trend in Asian markets amid sharp losses at the Wall Street, as investors continued to fear weakening global growth. Besides, profit-booking in recent gainers also dampened investor sentiment here.

Infosys emerged as the worst performer in the Sensex pack, falling 1.67 per cent, followed by Wipro at 1.49 per cent on weakening dollar against the rupee.

Other laggards include Yes Bank, HDFC Ltd, ICICI Bank, HUL, IndusInd Bank, Adani Ports, TCS, ONGC, ITC Ltd, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, Maruti Suzuki, SBI, RIL, Coal India and Asian Paint, falling up to 0.88 per cent.

However, Tata Motors, M&M, Bajaj Auto, Sun Pharma, L&T, Hero MotoCorp, PowerGrid and Bharti Airtel defied the broader market sentiment and were trading higher by up to 1.12 per cent.

Stocks of state-run oil marketing companies such HPCL, BPCL and IOC were trading higher up to 1.16 per cent on the back of easing crude oil prices in global market.

According to provisional data, domestic institutional investors sold shares worth a net of Rs 76.84 crore, while foreign institutional investors (FIIs) offloaded shares of Rs 60.95 crore on Monday.

Elsewhere in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei shed 1.23 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 1.01 per cent, Shanghai Composite Index fell 1.09 per cent and Korea’s KOSPI fell 0.39 per cent.

The US Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 2.11 per cent down on Monday. PTI