The two key equity benchmarks, Sensex and Nifty, on Monday erase their opening gains and were trading in the red, tracking muted Asian cues. At 10 am, the BSE Sensex dropped 178 points to 71, 417. On the other hand, the NSE Nifty50 was trading at 21,718, down 65 points.
On the 30-share Sensex platform, PowerGrid, NTPC, SBI, Reliance, Bajaj Finance, ITC emerged prime losers. On the flip side, Wipro, HCLTech, Infosys, TechM, Axis Bank, Nestle were among the gainers. Among specific stocks, Mamaearth’s parent firm Honasa Consumer's share surged 9 per cent after its Q3 profit jumped 265 per cent YoY to Rs 26 crore.
In the broader markets, the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices advanced up to 0.27 per cent.
Sectorally, IT and Healthcare stocks rose nearly 1 per cent each. On the other hand, oil & gas, power, PSU Bank, and realty stocks fell 0.7-1 per cent.
In the previous session on Friday, the S&P BSE Sensex gained 167 points to end at 71,595, while the NSE Nifty50 closed at 21,783, up 65 points.
V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said that rising US bond yields may trigger selling from foreign institutional investors.
In the Asian market, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 and China's Shanghai Composite were trading marginally higher, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng was in the negative zone. European markets closed in the red while the US stocks ended on a mixed note, on Friday.
Global oil benchmark Brent crude declined 0.52 per cent to $81.76 a barrel on Monday.
Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) purchased shares worth Rs 141.95 crore on Friday, according to exchange data.
Meanwhile, the Indian rupee gained 8 paise to 82.99 against the US dollar in early trade on Monday, amid weakness of the US currency in the overseas market. At the interbank foreign exchange, the domestic currency posted a rise of 8 paise from its previous close. On Friday, the domestic currency settled at 83.07 against the dollar.