Mumbai: Market benchmarks fell in early trade on Monday amid weak trend in other Asian equities. After a weak beginning, the 30-share BSE Sensex further declined by 463.1 points to stand at 61,200.38. The broader NSE Nifty dipped by 129.25 points to 18,178.40. The BSE benchmark declined by 87.12 points or 0.14 percent to settle at 61,663.48 on November 18. The Nifty dipped by 36.25 points or 0.20 percent to end at 18,307.65. Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded shares worth Rs 751.20 crore on November 18, as per exchange data.
From the Sensex pack, Bajaj Finance, Mahindra & Mahindra, Bajaj Finserv, ITC, Reliance Industries, Tech Mahindra, HDFC, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services and Nestle were the major laggards.
Axis Bank, Bharti Airtel, Maruti, Hindustan Unilever and Tata Steel were the winners.
Asian markets in Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong were trading lower.
Wall Street had ended higher on November 18.
International oil benchmark Brent crude was trading 1.22 percent lower at USD 86.55 per barrel.
"There is a strong tailwind and a strong headwind which can sway the market now. The tailwind is the sharp decline in Brent crude to USD 86.75, which is a big macro positive for India. But this tailwind is unlikely to take the market higher since the headwind in the form of steadily declining momentum in the recent market uptrend is very strong," said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.
"The optimism driven by the recent decline is US inflation has run its course and the market is likely to wait for further data on the direction of US inflation and interest rates," Vijayakumar added.
(With PTI inputs)
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