Sensex drops 141 points in early trade on global sell-off, profit-booking; Infosys, Wipro among worst performers

Mumbai: Breaking its five-day winning streak, the benchmark BSE Sensex fell 141 points in early trade 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 percent, 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 percent, to 10,840.85. Among sectoral indices, IT fell the most 1.19 percent, followed by tech 1.08 percent, on account of appreciating domestic currency. Meanwhile, FMCG, healthcare, banking and consumer durables also fell by up to 0.35 percent 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. [caption id=“attachment_5263731” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representative image. Reuters[/caption] Infosys emerged as the worst performer in the Sensex pack, falling 1.67 percent, followed by Wipro at 1.49 percent 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 Paints, falling up to 0.88 percent. 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 to the tune of Rs 60.95 crore Monday. Elsewhere in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei shed 1.23 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 1.01 percent, Shanghai Composite Index fell 1.09 percent and Korea’s KOSPI fell 0.39 percent. The US Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 2.11 per cent down Monday.