Opening bell: Markets open in red; Sensex opens at 57,978.43, Nifty at 17,089.85

The markets on Thursday opened in red with Sensex at 57,978.43 down by 236.16 points, Nifty at 17,089.85 down by 62.05 points.

Bharti Airtel, Sunpharma, L&T, Tata Motors were among the gainers whereas Nestlé, Maruti, Titan, ICICI Bank were among the losers in early trade.

Global markets

Asian markets struggled on Thursday after Wall Street was in slumps. Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 1.63 per cent where as Nasdaq Composite dropped by close to 1.6 per cent.

Markets in Japan and South Korea and Australia all were in negative. Japan's Topix went down by 1 per cent where as South Korea's Kospi dropped by 0.7 per cent and Australia S&P/ASX 200 slumped 0.9 per cent. Hang Seng Index futures on the other hand went up by 0.8 per cent.

Brent crude futures

Brent crude futures saw a fall of 80 cents to $75.89 a barrel while US West Texas Intermediate crude slumped 84 cents to $70.06.