Sensex, Nifty start on choppy note amid mixed trend in Asian equities; IT stocks

Equity benchmarks Sensex and Nifty turned choppy on Tuesday, tracking weakness in index-heavyweight IT stocks amid a mixed trend in Asian equities.

Despite opening with strong gains, the 30-share Sensex turned volatile to trade 150 points lower to 56,333.72. The broader NSE Nifty fell 28.50 points to 16,842.80.

From the 30-share Sensex pack, Tata Steel, Infosys, Tech Mahindra, HCL Tech and TCS and Wipro were the prominent losers. On the other hand, Maruti Suzuki India, Mahindra & Mahindra, UltraTech Cement, Asian Paints, Bharti Airtel, and HDFC were among the gainers.

In the previous trade, the Sensex jumped 935.72 points or 1.68 per cent to settle at 56,486.02. Similarly, the Nifty climbed 240.85 points or 1.45 per cent to settle at 16,871.30. Bourses in Hong Kong and Shanghai were quoting over 2 per cent lower, while Tokyo was trading marginally higher during the mid-session deals.

Stock exchanges in the US settled on a mixed note in the overnight trade.

Meanwhile, international oil benchmark Brent crude declined 3.73 per cent to USD 102.9 a barrel.

Foreign institutional investors continued their selling spree in Indian markets as they offloaded shares worth ₹176.52 crore on a net basis on Monday, according to exchange data.

Retail inflation hit an eight-month high of 6.07 per cent in February, remaining above the RBI’s comfort level for the second month in a row, while wholesale price-based inflation soared to 13.11 per cent on account of hardening of crude oil and non-food item prices, government data showed on Monday.