Sensex falls over 145 points in early trade; Nifty below 11,300

New Delhi: Domestic equity benchmark Sensex fell over 145 points in early trade on Wednesday dragged by losses in index-heavyweights amid negative trend in global markets.

The BSE Sensex was trading 145.05 points or 0.38 per cent lower at 38,261.96; while NSE Nifty was down 46.05 points or 0.41 per cent at 11,276.45.

Major losers in the Sensex pack were Bajaj Finance, Kotak Bank, HDFC Bank, L&T, Tata Steel, Bajaj Finserv, Axis Bank, ITC, NTPC, HUL and ONGC, falling upto 1.68 percent.

On the other hand, SBI, M&M, Bharti Airtel, HCL Tech, Maruti, Tech Mahindra, Bajaj Auto, Asian Paint and RIL were among the gainers, rising upto 3.92 percent.

In the previous session, the Sensex had settled 224.93 points or 0.59 per cent higher at 38,407.01, while the Nifty jumped 52.35 points or 0.46 per cent to finish at 11,322.50.

Exchange data showed that foreign institutional investors bought equities worth Rs 1,013.66 crore on a net basis on Tuesday.

According to traders, market sentiment weakened tracking losses in other Asian indices after US equities ended lower.

Index of ex-Japan Asia-Pacific shares shedding 0.76% while Japan`s Nikkei gained 0.2%. On Wall Street, the S&P 500 snapped a seven-day winning streak.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude was trading 0.56 per cent higher at USD 44.75 per barrel.