Sensex falls over 150 pts; Nifty slips below 10,900

The BSE Sensex fell over 150 points and NSE Nifty slipped below the 10,900 level in early trade Monday on losses in auto, banking, power and pharma stocks amid sustained selling by domestic institutional investors and mixed Asian cues on worries about global growth and China-US tariff tiff.

The 30-share barometer was trading 191.15 points, or 0.52 per cent, lower at 36,355.33. The gauge had lost 424.61 points on Friday.

The NSE Nifty was trading down by 48.80 points, or 0.54 per cent, at 10,894.80.

Sectoral indices led by auto, banking, capital goods, consumer durables and healthcare were trading in the negative terrain, falling up to 1.55 per cent.

The laggards were Hero MotoCorp, M&M, ONGC, Vedanta, Coal India, Yes Bank, L&T, ICICI Bank, Asian paint, Maruti Suzuki, Bajaj Auto, ITC, RIL, HUL, IndusBank, SBI, Axis Bank, PowerGrid and Sun Pharma, dropping up to 2.98 per cent.

However, Tata Steel, Kotak Bank, Infosys, TCS, HDFC, HDFC Bank and HCL Tech were trading higher on scattered buying by investors.

"Volatility is likely to continue amid growing concerns over the trade fight between the US and China, also Markets to closely track domestic macroeconomic data like IIP, CPI and WPI scheduled this week," said Hemang Jani, Head - Advisory, Sharekhan by BNP Paribas.

Meanwhile, on a net basis, domestic institutional investors (DIIs) sold shares worth Rs 960.04 crore, while foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth Rs 843.73 crore on Friday, provisional data released by the stock exchanges showed.

In the Asian region, Hong Kong's Hang Seng was up 0.13 per cent and Shanghai Composite Index, which reopened after a long week, was up 0.83 per cent in their late morning deals. Japan's financial markets are closed for a public holiday. Korea's Kospi fell 0.16 per cent and Singapore Straits Times was down 0.58 per cent.

The US Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 0.25 per cent lower on Friday.