Sensex falls over 200 pts in early trade; Nifty below 11,300

Domestic equity benchmark Sensex fell over 200 points in early trade on Wednesday dragged by losses in index-heavyweights Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank and L&T amid negative trend in global markets.

The BSE Sensex was trading 243.24 points or 0.63 per cent lower at 38,163.77; while NSE Nifty was down 69.60 points or 0.61 per cent at 11,252.90.

Bajaj Finance was the top loser in the Sensex pack, dropping around 2 per cent, followed by L&T, Bajaj Finserv, Sun Pharma, Kotak Bank, HDFC Bank and Reliance Industries.

On the other hand, SBI, M&M, Maruti, Bajaj Auto and Titan were among the gainers.

In the previous session, the Sensex had settled 224.93 points or 0.59 per cent higher at 38,407.01, while the Nifty jumped 52.35 points or 0.46 per cent to finish at 11,322.50.

Exchange data showed that foreign institutional investors bought equities worth Rs 1,013.66 crore on a net basis on Tuesday.

According to traders, market sentiment weakened tracking losses in other Asian indices after US equities ended lower.

Further, weak domestic factory output data dampened investors’ mood, they said.

India's industrial production declined by 16.6 per cent in June, on account of disruption in normal business activity following the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic, the government data showed on Tuesday.

Bourses in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Seoul were in red, while Tokyo was trading with gains.

Stock exchanges on Wall Street ended on a negative note in overnight trade.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude was trading 0.56 per cent higher at USD 44.75 per barrel.