It was a rough start to the week for the Indian stock markets with both benchmark indices closing in the red.
The Nifty was down 1.14 per cent to close at 5,257 losing 61 points while the Sensex fell by 1.10 per cent or 193 points and closed at 17,273.
Apart from FMCG, pharma and health care sector, all sectoral indices closed in the red on Monday with realty, power and capital goods being among the worst hit.
“The negative news from Friday’s budget of increase in service tax, cess and excise duties continued to have a depressing impact on the bourses on Monday as well with regards to stocks of oil exploration companies such as Cairn India, ONGC and engineering export companies including Punj Lloyd and L&T,” said Mr Alex K Mathews, Head Technical and Derivatives Research Geojit BNP Paribas Financials Limited.
“PSU banks too were given a capital package of $3 billion which was considered insufficient to manage their NPA problem so that’s why PSU bank stocks were down,” he added.
Volatility was down, with the India Vix closing down 0.69 per cent at 22.97.
Mahindra & Mahindra, Cairn, ITC, Sun Pharma and ACC were the top five Nifty gainers while Reliance Infra, IDFC, BHEL, RPower and BHEL were the losers on the Nifty.