Markets open in red as Sensex plunges over 1,000 points, Nifty down to 17,200

Markets open in red as Sensex plunges over 1,000 points, Nifty down to 17,200

Indian shares dropped early on Monday, hammered by a crash in IT stocks after Infosys slid 9% on missing March-quarter profit estimates.

People watch the Sensex on a screen outside Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) in Mumbai. (PTI File Photo)

The NSE Nifty 50 index was down 1.54% at 17,197.65, as of 0350 GMT, while the S&P BSE Sensex fell 1.76% to 57,320.61. Both the indexes had posted weekly losses of more than 1.5% each, last week.

Stock markets in India were closed on Thursday and Friday for public holidays.

India's number two software services provider Infosys slumped as much as 9.1% to an eight-month low and was the top drag on the Nifty 50 index.

The firm's consolidated net profit for the March quarter was 56.86 billion rupees ($744.24 million), lower than analysts' expectation of 59.80 billion rupees.

Nifty's IT sub-index declined the most among major sub-indexes and was down nearly 4%.

Meanwhile, several markets in Asia and Europe were closed on account of Easter on Monday. U.S. equity futures, however, declined amid a deepening crisis in Ukraine.