Sensex, Nifty fall in early trade on continuous foreign fund outflows, sluggish trend in global markets

Mumbai: Equity benchmark indices declined in early trade on Monday after a day's breather amid continuous foreign fund outflows and sluggish trends in global market. The 30-share BSE Sensex declined 179.06 points to 63,603.74 despite a positive beginning. The Nifty dipped 49.25 points to 18,998. Among the Sensex firms, Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra, Maruti, Power Grid, Bajaj Finance, Larsen & Toubro, Titan and Axis Bank were the major laggards.

Reliance Industries, Tech Mahindra, UltraTech Cement and Tata Consultancy Services were the gainers. In Asian markets, Tokyo and Hong Kong traded in the negative territory while Seoul and Shanghai were quoted in the green. The US markets ended mostly lower on Friday.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude declined 1.23 per cent to USD 89.37 a barrel. Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 1,500.13 crore on Friday, according to exchange data.

Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) have pulled out over Rs 20,300 crore from Indian equities this month so far, primarily due to a sharp surge in the US treasury yield, and the uncertain environment resulting from the Israel-Hamas conflict.

The BSE benchmark jumped 634.65 points or 1.01 percent to settle at 63,782.80 on Friday. The wider gauge Nifty surged 190 points or 1.01 percent to 19,047.25.