Sensex falls over 300 points, Nifty below 10,950: Here's why the markets cracked

New Delhi: Indian stock markets indices opened in the negative territory on Friday.

The wider Nifty50 of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) traded lower by 77.70 points or 0.71 percent at 10,938.20 points.

Meanwhile, the benchmark BSE Sensex slumped by 302.66 points, or 0.84 percent, at 35,604 in early trade today.

The Sensex has so far touched a high of 35,738.13 points and a low of 35,604.00 points during the intra-day trade.

The BSE market breadth was bearish with 498 declines and 139 advance.

Among major losers, private banks Kotak Bank, IndusInd Bank Yes bank, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank fell up to 2.9 percent.

Adani Ports, HDFC, L&T and Reliance Industries, Maruti, SBI, Bajaj Auto, M&M, Coal India and NTPC also declined up to 2 percent.

IT major TCS and Infosys and drug makers Sun Pharma and Dr Reddy's, however, posted gains of up to 1.20 percent on a weaker rupee.

Here's why the markets cracked

Mearkets went into a tailspin after the government imposed capital gains tax on equities in its Budget announcement. Market saw volatility after the announcement of 10 percent long term capital gains tax and breach in fiscal deficit target.

Sentiment also took a hit after the Budget raised the fiscal deficit target for 2017-18 to 3.5 percent of GDP as against 3.2 percent earlier. The target for 2018-19 has been fixed at 3.3 percent as against the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act target of 3 percent.

A weak trend in Asia also came as a dampener, traders said. With the Budget out of the way, the focus turns to RBI's monetary policy to be released later this month. Equity traders around the world have been firing on all cylinders in recent months, sending markets to record or multi-year highs, on confidence in the global economy, healthy earnings and optimism over Donald Trump's tax cuts.