Sensex tumbles over 700 points in early trade, Nifty below 16,200; Campus Activewear debuts with 23% premium

Mumbai: Domestic benchmark indices opened in the red on Monday tracking weak global sentiment. Shares in most Asian markets fell on Monday as interest rate hikes and a slowing Chinese economy weighed on investor sentiment. Oil prices were higher and US futures fell following sharp declines on Wall Street last week.

The BSE Sensex dived 713.49 points to 54,122.09 in early trade and the NSE Nifty tanked 248.7 points to 16,162.55.

Shares of Axis Bank, Tata Steel, Tech M, Maruti, Bajaj twins, Reliance, HDFC twins, ICICI Bank and M&M were the major drags on the Sensex pack, falling up to 4 per cent. Tech Mahindra scrip cracked as much as 4.53 per cent to Rs 1,232.25.

Meanwhile, Hindalco, JSW Steel, and Tata Motors were the losers on the Nifty pack. The only gainers were PowerGrid, UPL and Cipla, gaining 1 per cent.

Future Enterprises seemed to ignore the market sentiment as share rose 3 per cent. The firm expects to pare debt with Rs 3,000 crore that it expects to raise by selling its stake in the insurance business, according to PTI. The development comes after the company announced the completion of a 25 per cent stake sale in its general insurance joint venture, Future Generali India Insurance to JV partner Generali for a consideration of Rs 1,266.07 crore.

On the sectoral front, all indices were in deep red in the opening session. Nifty Metals, IT, PSBs, and Energy lost the most, up to 2 per cent.

Sports and athleisure footwear company Campus Activewear got listed on the bourses and started off first day trade with a 23.29 percent premium. The stock opened at Rs 355 on the BSE against issue price of Rs 292 and at Rs 360 on the NSE.

LIC IPO

Today is the last day to subscribe to the Rs 21,000 crore IPO of the state-owned insurance behemoth, Life Insurance Corporation, which has seen 138 per cent subscription as of May 6. The issue was subscribed 1.66 times the offer size by Saturday end, the fourth day of the public issue which opened for bidding on May 4 and is set to close on May 9.

The price band of the issue is Rs 902-949 per share. The offer got overall bids for 26,83,18,335 shares against 16,20,78,067 offered by the promoter Government of India, which is divesting a 3.5% stake in the company.