The markets closed in the red for the third consecutive day with the Sensex down 50 points at 18,086 and the Nifty shed 16 points to close for the day at 5,422.
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(Updated at 1530 hrs)
The markets continue to trdae in the negative into the last hour with the Sensex down 69 points at 18,067 and the Nifty shed 22 points at 5,416. In the braoder markets, the smallcap index is down 0.6% and the midcap index lost 0.5% underperforming the Sensex which was down 0.3%
Earlier in the day, markets opened marginally higher tracking firm Asian cues, but immediately turned negative, few minutes after opening as investors turned jittery over earnings growth concerns. After that the markets moved into the positive only to slip into the negative in the afternoon trades due to the slump in the Oil & Gas space.
Among the sectoral indices, Oil & gas, PSU, Auto and Health Care indices are trading in the negative, down 1% each followed by Realty and Bankex indices. On the other hand, FMCG continues to be the top sectoral gainer, up 0.3% along with the IT index which saw some fresh buying interest in the afternoon trades.
Wipro and HDFC up nearly 2% followed by Hero Honda, Hindalco, Tata Power, DLF and TCS gaining between 0.7 - 1% are the top Sensex gainers.
Tata Motors and Reliance Infrastructure down 3% each are the top losers followed by SBI, Reliance Communication, Jaiprakash Associates and RIL losing 2% each.
The market breadth is very negative. of the total 2811 stocks traded on the BSE, 1763 stocks have declined while 931 advanced.