The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex declined by 69 points in opening trade on Thursday on continued profit-booking by speculators and other participants.
However, gains on other Asian bourses capped the losses in the domestic market.
The 30-share barometer, which has lost over 89 points in the previous two sessions, declined further by 69.21 points, or 0.33 per cent, to 19,542.99 in the first few minutes of trade today as auto, IT and banking stocks remained under pressure.
In a similar fashion, the wide-based National Stock Exchange Nifty index slid by 24.35 points, or 0.41 per cent, to 5,874.85 points.
Brokers said continued profit-booking by participants put some pressure on the trading sentiment in the wake of the market rallying by nearly 11 per cent last month, but a better trend on other Asian bourses limited the losses here.
Stocks of the country’s largest car-maker, Maruti Suzuki, fell by 1.60 per cent to Rs 1,273.95 on fresh selling after the company recalled 13,157 units of three diesel models.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was up by 0.15 per cent and Japan’s Nikkei gained 0.71 per cent in early trade today. The US Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 0.27 per cent higher in yesterday’s trade.
