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Benchmark indices continue to remain weak in the afternoon trades on Wednesday, amid political uncertainty, with capital goods, financials and oil shares leading the fall.
At 14:20 PM, Sensex was down 107 points at 18,901, and the Nifty slipped 45 points to 5,701 levels. The Sensex and the Nifty reached an intra-day low of 18,872 levels and 5,693 mark, respectively.
On the global front, share markets across most of Asia and the euro struggled after a bailout plan for Cyprus fell into disarray, but losses were limited as investors clung to hopes that a last minute deal will be hammered out.
The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan eased 0.2%, having earlier carved out a fresh 2013 trough. Among the biggest losers, South Korea's Kospi fell 1% and Taiwan's lost 0.5%.
Bucking the region's weakness, Hong Kong stocks bounced off a three-month low thanks to a rally in Chinese shares. Japanese financial markets were shut for a holiday.
Back home, on the political front, uproar over issues relating to Sri Lankan Tamils and Union Minister Beni Prasad Verma's remarks against Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav led to the adjournment of Parliament for an hour today.
On the sectoral front, BSE Realty index has crumbled by nearly 4% followed by counters like Capital Goods, Power, PSU and Banks, all falling down by almost 2% each. BSE FMCG index has surged by almost 1%.
Shares of real estate companies are under pressure with many of them trading lower by more than 5% on BSE.
Housing Development and Infrastructure Limited (HDIL), Unitech, Purvankara Projects, Peninsula Land, IVRCL, Jaiprakash Associates and DB Realty are trading lower in the range of 5-20%.
HDIL has tanked almost 20% to Rs 48.70, also its record low on NSE after local credit agency Credit Analysis and Research Ltd (CARE) downgraded the real estate developer's debt, citing "delays in servicing" obligations.
Financial shares are down despite the 25 basis points repo rate cut by the central bank on Tuesday. Private banks continued to witness selling pressure. HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank are down 0.31% each while SBI is the top Sensex loser, down almost 3%. HDFC is down by nearly 1%.
Capital Goods majors like L&T and BHEL have fallen by 2% each.
In the oil and gas space Reliance Industries has slipped 0.6% while ONGC lost 1.8%.
Other Sensex losers include NTPC, Hindalco, Maruti Suzuki, Wipro, Tata Steel and Jindal Steel.
On the gaining side, Hindustan Unilever (HUL) is trading higher by almost 3% after the UBS upgraded the stock to ‘Buy” from “Neutral”.
Other notable gainers include Cipla, Tata Motors, TCS and Tata Power, all gaining between 1-2%.
Among other shares, shares in Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd has slipped by almost 5% after Goldman Sachs downgraded the television broadcaster to "neutral" from "buy", saying the stock appears "fairly valued" given macro headwinds that could hurt advertisement spending.
In the broader market, the BSE Mid-cap index is down 1.80% while BSE Small-cap index dropped 1.86%.
The market breadth remains unhealthy with 2,111 declines and 649 advances on the BSE.
