Banks drag the Sensex for the second consecutive day

Financials led the loses on the D- Street for the second consecutive day. The Sensex lost 193 points to settle at 20,305 and the Nifty shed 67 points to close the day at 6,078 (provisional)

Earlier the day, the markets opened lower led by weak cues from Asia and Wall Street. Sell-off in banking stocks weighed on the index. The Sensex dropped 90 points, to 20,406 and the Nifty lost 34 points, 6112 in opening trades. From there on the markets moved in a narrow range of 100 points and spiralled down sharply since the afternnon trades. Banking and Realty are the two sectors which lead the down fall.

The Asian markets saw a mixed closing. after a weak opening. Taiwan Weighted lost nearly 2% while Shanghai Composite, Nikkei and Seoul Composite lost  between 0.1% -0.5%. On the other hand, Hang Seng, Jakarta Composite, KLSE Composite and Straits Times gained 0.2% - 0.8%.

In tune with the negative sentiments in the international market, the europeean indices opened in the negative. CAC and DAX are down nearly 1% and FTSE has shed 0.8%