Sensex drops over 100 points on weak global cues, foreign fund outflows; Bharti Airtel, HUL stocks down

Mumbai: The BSE Sensex fell over 100 points in early trade Thursday on heavy foreign fund outflow amid rising global crude prices and a subdued trend at other Asian bourses.

The 30-share barometer, which had lost 840 points in the previous five sessions, was trading 120.01 points, or 0.33 percent, lower at 35,914.10. On similar lines, the NSE Nifty was down 40.95 points, or 0.38 percent, at 10,752.70 points.

Traders said sentiment remained bearish on continued withdrawal of funds by foreign institutional investors and surging crude prices overseas.

Foreign portfolio investors sold shares worth a net Rs 676.63 crore, while domestic institutional investors bought shares worth a net Rs 713.10 crore Wednesday, provisional data showed.

In morning session on Sensex, the laggards that dragged the key indices down were Bharti Airtel, Coal India, NTPC, Kotak Bank, HUL, Bajaj Finance, RIL, PowerGrid, HDFC Bank, Infosys, HCL Tech, Asian Paint, ONGC, TCS, SBI, M&M, HDFC, Tata Steel and IndusInd Bank, falling up to 2.48 percent.

However, Yes Bank rallied up to 20 percent after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said it had not found any divergence in the asset classification and provisioning done by the lender during 2017-18.

RBI assesses compliance by banks with extant prudential norms on income recognition, asset classification and provisioning (IRACP) as part of its supervisory processes.

Sectorally, oil and gas, realty, PSU, consumer durables, IT and metal indices led the losses, falling up to 1.44 percent.

Meanwhile, the rupee depreciated 14 paise to 70.94 against the dollar.

Brent crude futures were trading higher by 0.46 percent at $63.90 per barrel.

Stocks of state-run oil marketing companies such as IOC, BPCL and HPCL were down by up to 1.50 percent.

A weak trend at other Asian markets too dented domestic trading sentiments, traders added.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 0.50 percent, Shanghai’s Composite Index fell 0.32 percent, Singapore’s Straits Times shed 0.15 percent and Korea’s Kospi slipped 0.44 percent. Japan’s Nikkei, however, was a shade higher in late morning deals.

On Wall Street, the US Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 0.46 percent higher in Wednesday’s trade.