Markets continue downward spiral, Sensex falls 290 points

New Delhi: Markets continued their downward spiral on Monday with the Sensex falling over 100 points while the Nifty opened below 10,300 level.

The benchmark BSE Sensex lost another 290.73 points, or 0.85 percent, to 34,086.26 in early trade Monday. Similarly the NSE Nifty fell 96.40 points or 0.93 percent at 10,220.05

Meanwhile, the rupee dropped by another 14 paise to 73.90 per dollar in early trade Monday as the US currency gained in global markets amid unabated foreign fund outflows. On Friday, the rupee had lost 18 paise to end at record low of 73.76 after collapsing to a life-time low of 74.23 (intra-day) after the RBI unexpectedly kept the policy rate unchanged.

Foreign investors have pulled out over Rs 9,300 crore (USD 1.3 billion) from the Indian capital markets in the last four trading sessions.

MSCI`s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.3 percent, after major stock markets around the world fell for a second straight day on Friday. Australian shares were down 1 percent. Markets in Japan are closed for a holiday, Reuters said. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.68 percent and the S&P 500 lost 0.55 percent, while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.16 percent - its first weekly percentage decline since March. 

With Agency Inputs