Benchmark share indices ended over 1% down on Monday, amid weak European cues, on selling pressure in index heavyweight Reliance Industries along with banking and software shares.
The 30-share Sensex was down 191 points or 1.1% at 17,275 and the Nifty dropped 65 points or 1.2% to 5,253.
In the global markets, key European share indices such as the CAC-40, DAX and FTSE-100 were down 0.2%-0.6% each.
Asian markets were trading mixed. The Nikkei and Shanghai Composite were marginally up while the Hang Seng was down nearly 1%.
Among Sensex shares, index heavyweight Reliance Industries ended down 2.2% at Rs 755, extending its Friday's 3% fall, on reports that the output from the company's biggest gas fields in the KG-D6 block have touched a record low of 28 million standard cubic meters per day (mmscmd) as the company closed six wells due to water and sand ingress.
Software majors witnessed selling pressure with analysts citing rising concerns about weaker-than-expected Jan-Mar earnings and uncertainty about corporate IT spends in the year starting April. TCS is the top Sensex loser, down 3.9% at Rs 1,122 while Infosys was down 1.1% at Rs 2,833.
Bank shares lost ground for the third straight session after after the Reserve Bank of India, at it's credit policy meet last week, maintained a status-quo on key policy rates. ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, SBI and HDFC ended down 1-3%
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