Sensex sheds 500 points, Nifty 50 down 150 on RIL and weak global cues

• Indian markets opened slightly lower as SGX Nifty, an early indicator of the market, was down 0.26%.
• Most global markets including peers Asian markets gave negative cues ahead of a key Fed rate decision due this week.
• RIL, Infosys, ICICI Bank among stocks to watch out for on July 25.

Indian stock markets opened lower, following its Asian peers. However, the shares of RIL which fell by 4% in early morning trade, dragged the indices further further down. The oil to telecom major missed analysts’ expectations in June quarter in spite of a 46% jump in net profit to ₹17,955 crore.

Sensex lost 500 points in opening trade at 55,656 while Nifty 50 fell by 150 points to 16,607.

This is a trend reversal from last week, which had picked up on positive corporate earnings reports. The Nifty50 index ended last week with the highest gain in the last 75 weeks, said Apurva Sheth, head of market perspectives at Samco Securities.

Some of the credit also goes to foreign portfolio investors or FPIs who turned net buyers for the first time in nine months in July, as their selling intensity abated.

However, analysts were disappointed with a few corporate earnings presented in the post markets close and the weekend.

"RIL's results, though impressive on the telecom and retail front, fell slightly below expectations in the refining space. ICICI Bank's results are the best in the banking segment," V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services told PTI.

Infosys stock was also down by 0.75% in early trade, as it announced its results on Sunday, July 24.

Among other top losers was Zomato that lost 12% of its value in opening trade as the one year lock-in period of promoters, shareholders, employees and others ended today.

Markets were largely expected to remain volatile this week as the Fed is to announce its decision on interest rates and the US will release second quarter gross domestic product data; later in the week. The movement of the falling rupee is also expected to impact the direction of the market.

In Asia, markets in Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong were trading lower, while Seoul quoted in the green.

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