Sensex falls nearly 150 points, Nifty slips below 10,200

New Delhi: The benchmark Sensex, cracked below the 34,000-mark while the NSE Nifty slipped below 10,200.

Sensex fell 153.24 points or 0.45 percent at 33,981.14 in early morning trade. The 30-share index hit intra-day high of 34,012.28 and low of 33,852.70.

Similarly, the NSE Nifty fell 55.55 points or 0.54 percent to 10,189.70.

The rupee depreciated 23 paise to 73.79 against the US dollar in early trade Tuesday as the American currency strengthened overseas.

Major laggards were Asian Paints, ONGC, HUL, ITC Ltd, Kotak Bank, RIL, Wipro, ICICI Bank, NTPC, SBI, ICICI Bank, Infosys, TCS, HDFC Bank, Bajaj Auto, Hero MotoCorp, L&T, Vedanta Ltd, Tata Steel and Sun Pharma, declining by up to 2.59 per cent.

Meanwhile, on a net basis, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares of Rs 511.91 crore Monday, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought shares worth Rs 303.21 crore, as per provisional data.

Asian shares fell on Tuesday as earnings season nerves in the US. dented Wall Street, Reuters said. MSCI`s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan dropping 1.3 percent. South Korea`s Kospi fell as much as 2.5 percent and was on course to hit a 1-1/2-year low. In Japan, the Nikkei fell 2.3 percent.

US stock futures dropped 0.8 percent in early Tuesday trade. On Monday the S&P 500 lost 0.43 percent as investors kept a wary eye on earnings amid global growth worries.

With Agency Inputs