Equity markets opened Monday on a lower note, continuing the previous day’s decline, with the Sensex shedding 785 points in early trade, reflecting an extremely weak trend in Asian markets.
Unabated outflows from foreign funds and selling by index majors Reliance Industries, Infosys and TCS also contributed to the weak mood.
The BSE benchmark Sensex was down 785 points at 56,412.14. The NSE Nifty fell 243.35 points to 16,928.60.
Among Sensex’s 30 stocks, the biggest laggards in early trade were Hindustan Unilever, Tata Steel, IndusInd Bank, Wipro, Larsen & Toubro, Tech Mahindra, Titan, TCS, Asian Paints and Infosys.
In contrast, ICICI Bank and Maruti were the winners.
On Friday, the Sensex fell 714.53 points, or 1.23%, to 57,197.15 and the Nifty fell 220.65 points, or 1.27%, to 17,171.95.
Elsewhere in Asia, markets in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Seoul and Shanghai traded with sharp cuts in intra-hour transactions.
Stocks in the US had also ended significantly lower on Friday.
Meanwhile, international oil benchmark Brent Crude fell 2.88% to $103.58 a barrel.
Overseas institutional investors continued their selling spree, selling ₹2,461.72 crore of shares, according to stock market data on Friday.
“US markets are down more than 2% on Friday while European markets are also down on Friday.
