Sensex, Nifty snap seven-day rally; Sensex falls over 200 points

New Delhi: Benchmarks Sensex and Nifty snapped their seven-day run in early trade on Thursday amid selling pressure from foreign institutional investors and tracking cues from Asian markets.

Analysts said, receding crude oil prices in international markets failed to boost sentiment as investors turned to book profit ahead of RBI's monetary policy decision.

The 30-share BSE Sensex fell 211.21 points, or 0.30 percent, to 69,442.52. The broader index Nifty also declined 58.95 points, or 0.28 percent to 20,878.75.

Among major Sensex constituents, Hindustan Unilever, Bharti Airtel, ICICI Bank and Bajaj Finance were the laggards and traded with a loss of up to 2.03 percent.

Meanwhile, the company that defied the broader market trend were PowerGrid, that rose 1.25 percent, followed by UltraTech Cement (1.07 percent), Asian Paints (0.96 percent) and NTPC (0.76 percent). Other gainers included Maruti, Kotak Mahindra Bank and HCL Tech.

As many as 18 shares of the 30-stock Sensex were trading in red, while 24 Nifty firms saw loss in early trade.

On Wednesday, Sensex surged 357.59 points, or 0.52 percent, to settle at a new record of 69,653.73. The broader index Nifty also climbed 82.60 points, or 0.40 percent, to hit its fresh peak of 20,937.70.

Foreign institutional investors sold shares worth Rs 79.88 crore on Wednesday, according to exchange data.

According to V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, in spite of favourable factors such as steady decline in US bond yields, India's GDP growth rate, declining crude price and political stability, "there will be dips in the market triggered by profit booking at higher levels".

The Reserve Bank of India is expected to maintain the status quo on the interest rate in its bi-monthly monetary policy decision to be announced on Friday.

Meanwhile, in Asian markets, Nikkei 225 was trading lower by 1.79 percent.

European markets finished broadly higher on Wednesday. France's CAC 40 closed 1.71 percent higher and Germany's DAX ended 0.75 percent higher. London's FTSE 100 gained 0.21 per cent,

The US markets ended on a mixed note on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 registering a loss of 0.39 percent, while Brazilian stocks gained 0.08 percent.

On Thursday, global oil benchmark Brent crude was trading 0.47 percent higher to USD 74.65 a barrel.