Stock Markets Fall in Early Trade on Relentless Foreign Fund Outflows, H-1B Visa Fee Concerns

Equity benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty declined in early trade on Thursday as relentless foreign fund outflows and US H-1B visa fee concerns made investors jittery.

Also, a weak trend in global peers drove the domestic equity markets lower.

Falling for the fifth day running, the 30-share BSE Sensex declined 141.32 points to 81,574.31 in the opening trade. The 50-share NSE Nifty slipped 22.4 points to 25,034.50.

From the Sensex firms, Tata Motors, Asian Paints, Titan, HCL Tech, Tata Consultancy Services, Maruti and Eternal were among the laggards.

However, Bharat Electronics, Bharti Airtel, ICICI Bank, Larsen & Toubro, Adani Ports and Infosys were among the major gainers.

In the past four days, the BSE benchmark tumbled 1,298.33 points or 1.56 per cent, and the Nifty declined 366.7 points or 1.44 per cent.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 2,425.75 crore on Wednesday, according to exchange data.

"With Trump's steep tariffs and new USD 1,00,000 H-1B visa fee weighing on sentiment, Nifty faces strong resistance at 25,300," Prashanth Tapse, Senior VP (Research) at Mehta Equities Ltd, said.

In Asian markets, South Korea's Kospi quoted lower while Japan's Nikkei 225 index, Shanghai's SSE Composite index and Hong Kong's Hang Seng traded in positive territory.

US markets ended lower on Wednesday.

"The significant drag on the market throughout this year has been the sustained selling by FIIs. The reforms being implemented in India, along with the low interest rate regime, have the potential to push economic growth and corporate earnings growth higher. This should bring FIIs back to the Indian market," VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Investments Limited, said.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude declined 0.43 per cent to USD 69.01 a barrel.

On Wednesday, the Sensex dropped 386.47 points or 0.47 per cent to end at 81,715.63. The Nifty declined 112.60 points or 0.45 per cent to 25,056.90.