Post Budget, Sensex slips 400 points; car companies bleed

The BSE Sensex lost 400 points at 39,112 in early trade on Monday in the first post-Budget week. The Nifty opened down as well trading 120 points down at 11,691 points.

After the Budget on Friday, the Sensex had closed 0.99 per cent lower at 39,513.39. The broader Nifty had closed down 1.14 per cent at 11,811.15 points.

Monday morning saw car companies -  Hero MotoCorp, Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors - trading at low levels including Larsen and Toubro & state-owned ONGC. 

Punjab and National Bank(PNB) stocks were down seven per cent. PNB on Saturday had said it had reported a borrowing fraud of Rs 3,800 crore rupees in Bhushan Power & Steel Ltd's account to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

PNB has been defrauded of over $2 billion in a separate scam that came to light last year. As a result, PNB stocks plunged on Monday.

The Rupee also opened lower at 68.57 against the US dollar gainst Friday's close of 68.42 against the dollar.

During the Budget, the BSE Sensex had fallen 394.67 points to 39,513.39 and the Nifty50 declined 135.60 points to 11,811.20 after finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had proposed increasing the minimum public shareholding in listed companies to 35 per cent from 25 per cent.

Eight of the eleven sector indexes compiled by the NSE closed in the red, while sixteen of the nineteen sector indexes compiled by BSE ended lower.

Shares of Tata Consultancy Services was the biggest drag on the index after it tumbled 3.6 per cent. India's IT index was down 2.5 per cent.