Nifty, Sensex stay sombre in 2024, auto stocks drag

• UltraTech Cement, Eicher Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra, Hero MotoCorp are the top laggards in trade.
• Divis lab, Sun Pharma, Cipla, Bajaj Finserv and Power Grid are among the gainers.
• Asian markets, Seoul, Shanghai and Hong Kong are also trading lower.

Equity benchmark indices, the Nifty and the Sensex, declined in early trade on Tuesday amid weak trends from Asian markets and fresh foreign fund outflows. Investors also opted to book profits after the recent sharp rally in the markets.

The 30-share BSE Sensex fell 202.76 points to 72,069.18. The Nifty declined 42.9 points to 21,699. At the time of publishing, the Nifty was down 130 points while the Sensex was seeing an almost 500 point fall.

Among the Sensex firms, UltraTech Cement, Eicher Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra, Hero MotoCorp, Infosys, Asian Paints and HCL Technologies were the major laggards.

Divis lab, Sun Pharma, Cipla, Bajaj Finserv and Power Grid were among the winners.

In Asian markets, Seoul, Shanghai and Hong Kong were trading lower.

Asian, European and the US markets were closed on Monday for the New Year.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude jumped 1.65% to USD 78.31 a barrel.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 855.80 crore on Monday, according to exchange data.

The BSE gauge eked out a modest gain of 31.68 points or 0.04% to settle at 72,271.94 after a muted beginning on Monday. The Nifty went up by 10.50 points or 0.05% to 21,741.90.

In 2023, the BSE benchmark jumped 11,399.52 points or 18.73%, and the Nifty climbed 3,626.1 points or 20%.