Equity benchmarks extended losses in morning trade with the Nifty falling below the 8700 level due to profit booking.
The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 127.57 points at 28051.51 and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 34.65 points to 8674.30. The broader markets too remained under pressure on weak breadth. About 1169 shares declined against 862 advancing shares on the BSE.
HDFC, HDFC Bank, HUL, Bharti Airtel, NTPC and GAIL were down more than 1 percent whereas ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, Sun Pharma and Maruti were gainers in morning.
Tata Group stocks remained under pressure after Tata Sons sacked Cyrus Mistry as chairman on Monday. Tata Steel, TCS and Tata Motors were down 1-2 percent.
Sanjay Mookim of Bank of America Merrill Lynch says change of leadership at the Tata Group was unexpected. He feels increased uncertainty at the top could affect stock prices of listed companies in the near term
