Mumbai, August 25: The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex on Tuesday fell by 154 points in opening trade as foreign funds and retail investors preferred to book profits amid weak Asian markets.
The 30-share index, Sensex, which had gained nearly 820 points in the past three session, moved down by 153.92 points, or 0.95 percent to 15,474.83 in opening trade.
Similarly, the Nifty index on the wide-based National Stock Exchange lost 44.85 points to 4,597.95.
Stocks of oil and gas, realty, banking and metal sectors succumbed to profit-taking, dragging the Sensex down.
Market analysts said emergence of profit-booking by major players, including foreign funds, at prevailing attractive levels led to a fall in select stocks.
They said weak trend on other Asian markets, which were down up to 1.5 percent in morning trade today, too cast its shadow on the trading sentiments here.
Major losers were RIL, which fell by 0.16 percent to Rs 1,971.10, Reliance Infra by 2 percent to Rs 1,114.50 and Infosys Tech by 0.65 percent to Rs 2,065.
Further, State Bank of India moved down by 0.81 percent to Rs 1,775.05, ICICI Bank by 1.28 percent to Rs 757.85, ITC Ltd by 1.17 percent to Rs 237, DLF Ltd by 1.05 percent to Rs 390.10 and Tata Power by 1.81 percent to Rs 1,297.05.
The Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was down by 1.5 percent, while Japan’s Nikkei shed one percent in morning trade today.
–Agencies