Indian benchmark equity indices, the BSE Sensex and the NSE Nifty50, continued their downtrend on Monday as trade sentiment turned sharply negative with investors reacting to a host of domestic and global cues. The Sensex shed over 400 points in the initial trade barely holding 39,050 level, while the Nifty slipped below 11,700.

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Asian equities fell on lingering concerns that the US-China trade tariff deal may not happen anytime soon, hurting risk appetite in equities. Closer at home, investors reeled under budget proposals to tax super-rich, minimum public shareholding and pledged share norms.

At 9.45 am, the Sensex was down by 384 points, trading at 39,129, while the Nifty still was below 11,697.55, down by over 113 points. HDFC, HDFC Bank, Reliance Industries, Tata Consultancy Services, L&T and ICICI Bank were among the top drags on the BSE index.

On Friday, the NSE index had closed the session at 11,811, down over 135 points, or 1.1 percent. The BSE index had settled at 39,513, down 395 points, or 1 percent.

The Nifty MidCap index dipped over 191 points, or 1.09 percent, to trade at 17,338. Nifty Bank also fell almost a percent, while all major sectoral indexes were in the red with BSE Auto, metal, PSU, CPSE and oil & gas among the worst performing sectors.

Hero Moto, Bajaj Auto, L&T, Tata Motors, Maruti Suzuki, M&M fell between 2 and 4 percent. HCL Tech, ITC, IndusInd Bank and Yes Bank were among top gainers rising by up to 0.77 percent.

Auto shares fell sharply with Hero Moto down over 4 percent in the initial trade. Shares of country's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki hit a two-year low of Rs 6,151, falling more than 3 percent intraday after the Budget ignored the sector.

Punjab National Bank shares fell as the public sector lender reported an alleged Rs 3,805 crore fraud by Bhushan Power and Steel.

Meanwhile, the Indian rupee opened lower by 15 paise to 68.57 against the US dollar. The home currency had closed at 68.42 a dollar on Friday.

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