Sensex drops 184 points in early trade; Nifty tests 11,300

New Delhi: Markets opened in the negative zone on Monday with domestic equity benchmark Sensex dropping 184 points in early trade tracking tepid cues from global equities.

After opening on a volatile note, the 30-share BSE index was trading 183.81 points or 0.48 per cent lower at 38,173.37 while the NSE Nifty slipped 21.05 points or 0.19 per cent at 11,312.80.

Major loser in the Sensex pack were M&M, Bharti Airtel, ONGC, NTPC, Ultrachem, HCL Tech, ITC, Bajaj Finance, Powergrid, Tech Mahindra, LT, and Bajaj Auto, falling upto 3.16 percent. On the other hand, major gainers were Axis Bank, Maruti, Asian Paint, ICICI Bank, Titan, HUL, HDFC, SBI, TCS and Tata Steel, rising upto 2.13 percent.

Among Asian peers, China`s blue-chip index slipped 0.3%. Japan`s Nikkei fell 0.2% with SoftBank coming under heavy selling following media reports it has spent at least $4 billion buying call options on listed U.S. technology stocks. Australian shares which had opened in the red, reversed losses to be up 0.1, while South Korea added 0.7%. That left MSCI`s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan up a tad after two straight days of losses toppled it from a 2-1/2-year peak last week, a Reuters report said.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude was trading 0.94 per cent lower at USD 42.26 per barrel.

In the previous session, Sensex ended 633.76 points or 1.63 per cent lower at 38,357.18, while Nifty plunged 193.60 points or 1.68 per cent to close at 11,333.85.

Exchange data showed that foreign institutional investors sold equities worth Rs 1,888.78 crore on a net basis on Friday.