The Sensex and Nifty opened lower in trade today amid weak Asian markets tracking losses on Wall Street as traders braced for an interest rate hike by Federal Reserve. While the Sensex fell 185 points at 36,084, Nifty lost 52 points to 10,837. Top Sensex gainers were Tata Motors (2.13%), Hero MotoCorp (0.64%) and Coal India (0.58%).
Infosys (2.16%), Wipro (1.71%) and Adani Ports (0.90%) were the top Sensex losers. Top sectoral losers were IT stocks with the BSE IT index losing 1.24%, BSE bankex (0.39%) and BSE healthcare index (0.37%).
Bank Nifty fell 135 points to 26,883.
Meanwhile, the mid cap and small cap indices were trading 0.32% and 0.21% lower in early trade.
Market breadth was negative with 446 stocks trading higher compared to 602 falling on the BSE.
On a net basis, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth Rs 60.95 crore on Monday, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) were net sellers to the tune of Rs 76.84 crore, provisional data available with BSE showed.
Global markets
Japan's Nikkei 225 index was 1.2 percent lower at 21,242.66 and the Kospi in South Korea dropped less than 0.1 percent to 2,070.54. Hong Kong's Hang Seng eased 0.3 percent to 26,022.16. The Shanghai Composite index dropped 0.6 percent to 2,583.51. Australia's S&P ASX 200 was down 0.9 percent at 5,609.00. Shares were lower in Taiwan and Southeast Asia.The Dow Jones Industrial Average skidded 2.1 percent to 23,592.98 and the Nasdaq composite was down 2.3 percent at 6,753.73. The Russell 2000 index of smaller company stocks lost 2.3 percent to 1,378.14.
The Federal Open Market Committee begins a two-day meeting on Tuesday. It is expected to raise its short-term interest rate by a modest quarter-point, to a range of 2.25 percent to 2.5 percent a day later.
Edited by Aseem Thapliyal