Stock markets decline in early trade; Sensex at 62,990.32

Mumbai: Equity benchmark indices declined in early trade on Friday, extending their previous day's fall, in line with weak trend in Asian markets and fresh foreign fund outflows.

Rising interest rates globally also dampened investor sentiments.

Markets also fell amid profit-taking after the recent rally, where the BSE barometer hit its record intra-day peak of 63,601.71 on Thursday.

The 30-share BSE Sensex fell 248.57 points to 62,990.32. The NSE Nifty declined 89.3 points to 18,681.95.

From the Sensex pack, Tech Mahindra, Infosys, Power Grid, Tata Steel, UltraTech Cement, State Bank of India, Bajaj Finserv, HCL Technologies and Bajaj Finance were the major laggards.

Asian Paints, NTPC, ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel and Nestle were the gainers.

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

The US markets ended on a mixed note on Thursday.

"After the Sensex hitting record highs, the market momentum has slowed down. The mood in the markets now is not so bullish, globally. The big wall of worry continues to be the rising interest rates. After the ECB’s and Swiss National Bank’s 25 basis points rate hike, the Bank of England surprised yesterday with a 50 bps rate hike.

"The message from the leading central banks, reiterated by the Fed in its recent Congressional testimony, is that they will not let down on containing inflation and there is a long way to go before the inflation target of 2 per cent is reached," said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude declined 0.70 per cent to USD 73.62 a barrel.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 693.28 crore on Thursday, according to exchange data.

The BSE Sensex fell by 284.26 points or 0.45 per cent to settle at 63,238.89 on Thursday. The Nifty went lower by 85.60 points or 0.45 per cent to end at 18,771.25.