Opening Bell: Market opens flat; Bajaj Finserv, Tata Steel top gainers, Dr Reddy's, Hero MotoCorp decline most

In line with the SGX Nifty, which was trading 20 points lower ahead of the opening trade, the Indian market opened on a muted note on Tuesday. The benchmarks Nifty 50 and Sensex opened flat with negative bias. 

The broader Nifty50 opened above 16,600, while the Sensex declined marginally to open near 55, 800. The two indices started the new session at 16,632.90 and 55,834.38 respectively.  

In the broader market, Nity Midcap and Smallcap declined by 0.3% and 0.5% respectively in the opening trade.  

On the sectoral front, except for Metal, Media and PSU Bank, all Nifty indices slipped in the red  

Minutes before the opening, the Sensex rose marginally by around 60 points as 21 stocks advanced, seven declined and two remained neutral on the 30-share index. 

"The dark cloud on the global economic horizon is the threat of an imminent US recession impacting global economic growth. The jury is still out on whether the US slips into a recession or not. But a global growth slowdown appears inevitable," said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, reacting to market outlook.  

Wall Mart's profit warning issued yesterday is an indication of the difficult days ahead for corporate earnings, he underlines.  

"Europe is the weakest geographical space in the world and China is struggling. Even though the Indian economy is resilient now, global growth slowdown will impact India too. This means, from the fundamental perspective, there is a limit to market upside," he pointed out. 

The 1400-point rally in Nifty from its June lows has again stretched market valuations, said Vijaykumar, adding, that Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) might again turn sellers to rallies. 

Earlier, Japanese Nikkei 225 traded lower by 0.25 and Chinese Shanghai Composite dropped 0.10%, while Hang Seng Index at the Hong Kong Exchange was trading higher by 0.4%.  

Ahead of the US Federal Reserve meeting, Dow Jones closed higher by 91 points from the day's lower level. The Nasdaq Index dropped 0.43% and S&P 500 gained 0.13% in the closing trade on Monday.