Sensex, Nifty tumble in early trade

Mumbai : Benchmark indices fell in the beginning of trading on Monday due to foreign fund outflows and the overall weakness in Asian markets, with Japan's Nikkei index dropping by almost 5 percent. Decline in key stocks such as ICICI Bank and Reliance Industries also weighed on the markets. In early trading, the BSE Sensex dropped 464.22 points to 85,107.63. The NSE Nifty fell by 133.85 points to reach 26,045.10.

Tech Mahindra, Mahindra & Mahindra, ICICI Bank, Reliance Industries, Axis Bank, and UltraTech Cement were some of the main underperformers out of the 30 Sensex companies. Tata Steel, JSW Steel, NTPC, Titan, Hindustan Unilever, and Asian Paints were some of the companies that saw an increase in their stock prices. Seoul and Tokyo saw losses in Asian markets while Shanghai and Hong Kong were in positive territory. The Nikkei 225 index of Japan saw a steep drop of almost 5 per cent at the beginning of trading on Monday. The US markets closed with a combination of gains and losses on Friday. According to exchange data, Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) sold equities valued at Rs 1,209.10 crore on Friday.

The market is expected to enter a period of consolidation in the short term. A major factor affecting international investment portfolios is the strong performance of Chinese stocks, demonstrated by the substantial 18 percent increase in the Hang Seng index in September. V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, mentioned that the increase was caused by optimism about a recovery in the Chinese economy due to the financial support measures introduced by Chinese authorities. The price of Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, rose by 0.71 pc  to reach USD 72.49 per barrel. On Friday, the BSE benchmark Sensex closed at 85,571.85, marking a decrease of 0.31 percent or 264.27 points. Throughout the day, it surged 142.13 points or 0.16 percent to hit a new all-time high of 85,978.25. The Nifty dropped by 37.10 points, representing a decrease of 0.14 percent.