Stocks Decline in Early Trade: Sensex, Nifty Fall

Mumbai, Feb 13 (PTI) Benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty fell in early trade on Tuesday as volatility persisted amid mixed trends in global markets.

The 30-share BSE Sensex opened on a positive note and climbed 116.42 points to 71,188.91 points. However, it soon took a U-turn and fell 129.92 points to 70,942.57 points.

Showing a similar trend, the broader Nifty rose 14.80 points to 21,630.85 points initially but lost ground and declined 63.25 points to 21,552.80 points.

In the Sensex pack, Tata Steel, JSW Steel, PoweGrid and Wipro were among the major losers while ICICI Bank, NTPC, ITC and Kotak Bank were trading in the green.

BSE smallcap index fell 1.65 per cent, midcap index dropped 0.57 per cent and largecap index slipped 0.12 per cent.

V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said midcap and smallcap stocks are likely to see a sharp fall as many such scrips are excessively valued.

"Correction will give opportunities to buy fairly valued stocks in this segment like PSU banks," he noted.

In Asia, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 and China's Shanghai Composite were trading in the positive territory while Hong Kong's Hang Seng was in the red.

European markets ended Monday's session in the green with CAC 40 of France and DAX of Germany rising 0.55 per cent and 0.65 per cent respectively.

On Monday, the US market ended on a mixed note.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude rose 0.09 per cent to USD 82.07 a barrel on Tuesday.

On Monday, Sensex settled 523 points or 0.73 per cent lower at 71,072.49 points while the Nifty closed 166.45 points or 0.76 per cent down at 21,616.05 points.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) were net buyers on Monday as they bought equities worth Rs 126.60 crore, according to exchange data.