Mumbai, Sep 1 (IANS): The benchmark indices fell sharply during the early morning trade on Thursday following a fall in American stocks in the last four days as concerns over a further rate hike by the US Federal Reserve weighed on stocks.

At 11.10 a.m., Sensex were trading at 431.12 points or 0.72 per cent down at 59,105.95, and Nifty was down 87.85 points or 0.49 per cent at 17,671.45.

TCS, Infosys, Reliance Industries, Tech Mahindra, HCL Technologies were the major losers on the Sensex.

Domestic equity markets were closed on Wednesday on account of Ganesh Chaturthi festival.

"Domestic equities are likely to drift lower in early trades Thursday, tracking weakness in the Asian pack after the US markets overnight ended weaker. On the backdrop of hawkish Fed rhetoric, central banks around the world, apart from the People's Bank of China, are also echoing Powell's hawkish stance, with the European Central Bank calling for a 'significant' rate hike in September," Prashanth Tapse, Research Analyst, Senior VP (Research), Mehta Equities Ltd, said before opening of market.

US stocks fell for the fourth straight day, with S&P500 futures were trading 0.70 per cent lower at 3,928 level on Thursday.

Meanwhile, asian shares were trading mostly lower today following the fall in US peers.

Japan's Nikkei 225 declined 1.5 per cent in the Thursday morning trading to 27,673.14, while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 dropped 1.7 per cent to 6,865.60.

South Korea's Kospi shed 1.7 per cent to 2,429.75 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost nearly 0.8 per cent to 19,799.92.