The Sensex and Nifty opened in the red a day after the Karnataka poll results signalled that BJP despite becoming the single largest party fell short of the halfway mark of 112 seats to form the government in the state. Weak Asian markets also contributed to negative sentiment. While the Sensex was trading 222 points lower at 35,321 level, the Nifty was down 78 points at 10,723 points.
Banking stocks fell the most with the BSE bankex plunging 291 points to 29,415. BSE oil and gas index too slipped 132 points to 14,600 in early trade. Bank Nifty was trading 352 points lower at 26,123 level.
On the Sensex, Hero MotoCorp (3.64%), ICICI Bank (2.60%) , and SBI (2.51%) were the top losers.
Of 30 Sensex stocks, 23 were trading lower.
The Punjab National Bank stock was trading 12.56% or 10 points lower at 75.20 on BSE a day after the public sector lender posted loss of Rs 13,416.91 crore for the January-March period, the biggest ever by any domestic lender, as bad loans surged. The state-owned bank had reported standalone profit of Rs 261.90 crore in the fourth quarter of the preceding fiscal 2016-17.
Meanwhile, the rupee recovered from the opening level of 68.14 and was trading at 67.86 against the US dollar on a likely intervention from the RBI in early trade.
On Tuesday, the Sensex closed 12 points lower to 35,543 and Nifty stood at 10,801, down 4.75 points. The Indian rupee too followed the stock market and fell below the 68 mark for the first time since January 2017, closing at 68.07 level.
Global markets
Asian markets fell in early trade on Wednesday after Pyongyang called off talks with Seoul, throwing a major US-North Korean summit into question, and a spike in the US 10-year Treasury yield to a seven-year high knocked sentiment on Wall Street.
Japan's economy shrank at an annualized rate of 0.6 percent in the quarter through March, as private investment and public spending declined. Japan's gross domestic product dipped quarter-on -quarter by 0.2 percent and affected sentiments in Asian markets.
South Korea's KOSPI was 0.4 percent lower, Japan's Nikkei was down 0.3 percent and Australian stocks edged up 0.1 percent.
Brent crude oil settled at $78.43 a barrel, up 20 cents, or 0.3 percent. It earlier reached an intraday peak of $79.47 a barrel, up $1.24 and its highest since November 2014.