Stock markets decline in early trade

Mumbai: Benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty declined in early trade on Monday, amid profit-taking and foreign fund outflows.

The 30-share BSE Sensex declined 261.39 points to 83,677.32 in early trade. The 50-share NSE Nifty dropped 62.9 points to 25,659.20.

From the Sensex firms, Maruti, Bharat Electronics, Titan, Eternal, Bajaj Finance and Bajaj Finserv were the major laggards.

However, Mahindra & Mahindra and State Bank of India were the gainers.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 6,769.34 crore on Friday, while Domestic Institutional Investors (DIIs) bought stocks worth Rs 7,068.44 crore, according to exchange data.

"Smart gains of 3,860 points on the Sensex and 1,157 points on the Nifty in October did not help the market scale up to a new record high. Profit-booking and FIIs again turning sellers prevented the continuation of the rally to record highs. Since the FII strategy of selling in India on rallies and moving money to other better-performing markets have paid them rich dividends, they can be expected to continue the same strategy now also.

"A change in this scenario will happen only when we have leading indicators suggesting a smart turnaround in India's corporate earnings," VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Investments Limited, said.

In Asian markets, South Korea's Kospi, Shanghai's SSE Composite index and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index were trading in positive territory.

US markets ended higher on Friday.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude climbed 0.45 per cent to USD 65.06 a barrel.

On Friday, the Sensex tanked 465.75 points or 0.55 per cent to settle at 83,938.71. The Nifty fell by 155.75 points or 0.60 per cent to 25,722.10.