Sensex drops 184 points in early trade on profit-booking, banking sector leads losses

QUICK PILL

• Brokers said that apart from profit-booking in recent gainers, a weak Asian trend - after the crude oil rally fizzled out - influenced the sentiment.

• Bank Nifty down by 1.7 per cent with PNB, ICICI Bank and SBI among top loser

The benchmark BSE Sensex fell by over 184 points and the NSE Nifty dropped below the 7,200-mark in early trade on Tuesday due to profit-booking by investors after recent gains amid a lacklustre trade in Asian markets.

At 10:15AM, the 30-share index fell by 184.39 points, or precisely 0.78 per cent, to 23,604.40 and slightly recovered from its early morning level but is still below the red line on the BSE.

Sectoral indices fare badly:

In the early morning trade, the Sensex slipped over 113.08 points, or 0.48 per cent, to 23,675.71, with sectoral indices - FMCG, banking, power, PSU, oil and gas, capital goods and consumer durables - being the worst hit. The index had gained 596.82 points in the last four sessions.

Also, the NSE Nifty dropped below the crucial 7,200-mark by falling 60.25 points, or 0.83 per cent, at 7,174.30.

The underlying cause:

Brokers said that apart from profit-booking in recent gainers, a weak Asian trend after the crude oil rally fizzled out influenced the sentiment.

In the Asian region, Hong Kong's Hang Seng was trading lower by 0.62 per cent and Shanghai Composite Index was down 1.26 per cent in early trade. Japan's Nikkei shed 0.48 per cent.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 1.40% higher in Monday's trade after the US oil prices rose more than 6 per cent.

Meanwhile, Bank Nifty was down by 1.7 per cent with PNB, ICICI Bank and SBI among top losers.

-With PTI inputs