Indian stock markets opened lower on Monday, November 3, extending last week’s losses as profit-taking and heavy foreign investor selling weighed on sentiment.
The BSE Sensex declined over 260 points in early trade to 83,677, while the NSE Nifty 50 dropped almost 63 points to 25,659.
Both indices reflected the cautious mood on Dalal Street after a bout of robust gains in October. Among Sensex constituents, Maruti Suzuki, Bharat Electronics, Titan, Bajaj Finance, and Bajaj Finserv were prominent laggards.
Mahindra & Mahindra and State Bank of India traded in positive territory, leading early gainers as select automaker and banking counters resisted the selloff.
Sector performance was mixed. Public sector bank indices outperformed, buoyed by hopes of higher foreign direct investment caps, while the consumer durables and IT sectors came under pressure.
Broader indices fared better, with the BSE midcap and smallcap indices posting minor advances, highlighting sustained interest in non-blue-chip stocks.
The weak opening followed on from a challenging Friday session, when the Sensex fell by 465 points and the Nifty dropped by 156 points in the face of renewed FII selling pressure.
According to exchange data, foreign institutional investors sold Indian equities worth Rs 6,769 crore, while domestic institutional investors stepped up buying with net purchases of Rs 7,068 crore, mitigating some downside but insufficient to turn sentiment around.
Analysts pointed to robust profit-taking following October’s strong gains, when the Sensex and Nifty both rallied sharply, though some reports overstated the advance, with official data showing monthly gains of nearly 3.6 per cent on each index.
VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit, told agencies that "profit-booking and foreign portfolio investors turning sellers prevented the market from sustaining new highs."
Global cues were mixed, with Asian benchmarks including South Korea’s Kospi, Shanghai’s Composite, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng trading higher. Wall Street ended last week in positive territory, providing some counterpoint to local selling. Brent crude price hovered between USD 64.77 and USD 65.25 during the time.
