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At 1PM, the Bombay Stock Exchange's 30-share index Sensex fell 82 points to trade at 19,414 while the National Stock Exchange's 50-share Nifty declined 32 points at 5,865.
Meanwhile, Asian markets traded lower after data showed euro-zone's tow biggest economies, Germane and France remained in recession and also ahead of the meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank officials this weekend for their assessment of the health of the global economy.
Equity markets in China and Taiwan are closed for public holidays. Other Asian markets such as Japan's Nikkei dropped 1.2% to 11,173.83, Hong Kong's Hang Seng declined 0.01% to 23,412.17, Singapore's Straits Times fell 0.27% to 3,281.64, while South Korea's Kospi was up 0.08% to 1,981 today.
Back home, all sectoral indices traded lower with real-estate, oil & gas, consumer durables, metal, healthcare leading declines on BSE.
Among key Sensex stocks, NTPC rose 1%, Tata Power and Sun Pharma gained 0.8%, Sterlite Industries added 0.4%, HDFC Bank and SBI rose 0.2% on BSE.
Among losers, Dr Reddy's fell 2%, RIL shed 1.6%, Tata Steel was down 1.5%, Bharti Airtel fell 0.6%, Wipro dropped 0.3%, Maruti Suzuki was down 1% on BSE.
The other key notable movers include, United Breweries is trading higher by over 4% to Rs 679 after falling 15% in past six trading sessions on clarification that brand "Kingfisher" has not been hypothecated or pledged by company to any lender to secure its loans and no shares of the company are pledged to the lenders of Kingfisher Airlines.
Tata Motors is trading lower by 3% at Rs 288 in opening deals on NSE, after reporting a lower-than-expected consolidated net profit at Rs 1,628 crore for the quarter ended December 2012 (Q3) mainly due to higher depreciation expenses, forex loss and higher tax outgo.
The broader markets traded negative with mid-caps and small-caps falling 0.4-1% on BSE.
The market breadth is negative. Out of 2,671 stocks traded, 1,756 stocks declined compared to 799 advances on BSE.
