Indian equity market made a weak start to the ‘long trading week’ on Monday amid geo-political and state election outcome uncertainties. The 30-share BSE Sensex slipped 714 points, or 2 percent, to 34,960, while the NSE Nifty50 declined by 205 points, 1.92 percent, to 10,488. Both benchmark indices saw the biggest single-day fall in the past two months with Nifty turning negative for the year 2018. The deep fall seen in market kept the market breadth firmly in favour of declines with NSE Advance-Decline ratio at 1:4.

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Amongst frontliners, Nifty Midcap index plunged 361 points, or 2.1 percent, to 16,693. The banking index, Nifty Bank also slumped 491 points, or 1.85 percent, to 26,102. All the sectoral indices ended the Monday session with cuts with Nifty Realty the biggest losing index with a fall of over 3 percent.

In a weak session of trade, oil marketing companies – IOC, BPCL and HPCL – along with Maruti showed some strength, while index heavyweights Reliance Industries, Kotak Mahindra Bank, HDFC, HDFC Bank and Infosys dragged the market.

Kotak Mahindra Bank was the top contributor to the downside for both Nifty and Nifty Bank after the private sector lender filed the writ petition against the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) August order vis-a-vis promoter stake dilution to 19.7 percent.

In the derivatives space, Nifty 10,600, 10,700 Put options saw major traction with both the options adding four lakh shares each with premium moving 90 percent and 81 percent respectively. Nifty December Futures closed with a premium of 12 points against a premium of 41 points on Friday.

Stocks in Asia declined on Monday following significantly weaker-than-expected Chinese trade data released over the weekend. The mainland Chinese markets, slipped with the Shanghai composite declining by 0.82 percent to close at about 2,584.58, while the Shenzhen composite shed 1.34 percent to finish the trading day at around 1,332.53.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 1.2 percent as Hong Kong-listed shares of China Construction Bank slipped 1.39 percent and Chinese tech juggernaut Tencent lost 0.9 percent.

Elsewhere in the region, Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 2.12 percent to close at 21,219.50 while the Topix index dropped 1.89 percent to end the trading day at 1,589.81.

Meanwhile, South Korea’s Kospi also slipped 1.06 percent to close at 2,053.79, with shares of chipmaker SK Hynix dropping 1.95 percent.

Over in Australia, the ASX 200 closed 2.27 percent lower at 5,552.50, with almost all sectors seeing losses. The financial subindex Down Under fell 3.12 percent as shares of Australia’s so-called Big Four Banks declined.