Opening Bell: Markets slump in early trade; power and realty sector lose up to 3%

On Monday, domestic equity market benchmark indices, BSE Sensex and Nifty 50 saw a huge gap-down start taking cues from weak trends on SGX Nifty in early trade.

Investors remain cautious about tightening monetary policies post Fed's hawkish comments. At the start of the week, oil lowered concerns that a spreading Covid-19 outbreak in China will affect the global demand. 

At the open, Sensex was down 710.77 points or 1.24% at 56486.38 level, and the Nifty was down 226.20 points or 1.32% at 16945.80. About 737 shares have advanced, 1553 shares declined, and 127 shares are unchanged. India VIX jumped 10.19% trading at 20.22 in the initial hour of the trading session.

ICICI Bank, Power Grid Corp and NTPC were among major gainers on the Nifty, while losers were Britannia Industries, Apollo Hospitals, HUL, BPCL and IndusInd Bank. On Sensex, there were only four leading stocks which were ICICI Bank, Powergrid Corporation of India, NTPC and M&M while the top losers were Hindustan Unilever, IndusInd Bank, Bajaj Finance, HDFC and Tech Mahindra.

In the broader markets, at 9.55 am BSE Mid Cap and Small Cap indices traded in red, down 1.67% and 1.52%, respectively. In the BSE Midcap index, the top gaining stocks were Adani Power, Aditya Birla Capital, Varun Beverages, ACC Cement and Bayer Cropscience whereas, in the BSE Smallcap index, Mahindra CIE, IOL Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals, Zee Media Corporation, Godrej Agrovet and Gokul Agro Resources were the top gainers.

On the sectoral front, indices were trading in red with BSE Realty index and BSE Power Index being hit the most losing up to 3.3%. The top metal stocks dragging the index were NMDC, Hindustan Zinc, SAIL, Jindal Steel and Tata Steel whereas the top realty stocks dragging the index were Sunteck Realty, Brigade Enterprises, India Bulls Real Estate, Macrotec Developers and The Phoenix Mills.