Here's how the markets opened today!

The Nifty snapped a two-day rally on Monday as weak overseas cues and profit booking after a decent uptick resulted in shares quoting lower. Trading is likely to be cautious this week due to the monthly expiry of derivatives and a public holiday on Friday.

The Nifty fell 52 points to 7,930 points in the first 30 minutes of trade even as the index recovered from an intra-day low of 7,918 points. Bajaj Auto, Hindalco, Cipla, Tata Motors and ITC were the top five losers even as banks continued to see value-based buying across the spectrum. As a consequence, Axis Bank, Kotak Bank and Bank of Baroda were among the top five gainers on the Nifty that included NMDC and ONGC as well. The Advance-Decline Ratio was a weak 9/41.

Axis Bank continued to hog the limelight, helming the top traded list as well. Reliance Industries and Infosys also enjoyed traders' attention on the National Stock Exchange.

Broader markets remained under pressure as well. The CNX 100, CNX 200 and CNX 500 Indices lost as much as 0.6 percent. The only bright spark was the 0.4 percent gain on the CNX Small Cap Index. The sector-specific indexes space was bathed in red too. Losses were seen on CNX Metals, CNX Realty, PSU Banking and the CNX FMCG space.

Sentiment was flat on the Bombay Stock Exchange where the Sensex shed 170 points at 26,048 with 27 stocks losing ground versus just three that gained. Hindalco, Tata Steel, ITC, NTPC and Coal India were the major losers whereas a shade of green was seen on Maruti, Tata Motors and ONGC.

Larsen & Toubro, State Bank of India and Axis Bank were the top three traded stocks on the Sensex.

The breadth was fairly week on the derivatives space with just 55 futures gaining ground versus 106 that fell. Notable gainers included SKS Microfinance which was beaten badly on Thursday. The Media and Automobile sectors were the only two sectors in the green among 18 that trade in the futures space. The biggest losses were seen on the metals and cement space.

Large block deals were seen on L&T Finance Holdings with 9.3 crore shares changing hands in the first 20 minutes of trade.

Image credit: Indiatimes