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Selling was visible across the sectors. After a brief green tick in the opening deals, FMCG slipped into the red.
Among other stocks, United Breweries was up 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.
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(Updated at 9.19 AM)
Markets started in the red, in line with the global cues, with the Sensex starting down 22 points at 19,474 and the Nifty slipped 10 points at 5,887.
Overnight, in US, the S&P 500 eked out a small gain for a third straight session on Thursday, helped by a flurry of merger activity, though investors see no catalysts to lift the market further with major averages near multi-year highs.
The market's slowed advance took the S&P 500 to its highest intraday level since November 2007 on Wednesday. While the index notched its third straight day of gains, none was more than 0.2%.
The Dow Jones industrial average was down 0.07%, at 13,973. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 0.07%, at 1,521. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 0.06%, at 3,199.
Meanwhile, Asian shares eased on Friday with investors turning cautious as weak euro zone growth data ahead of the G20 meeting on Saturday in Moscow.
The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.1%. The Nikkei stock average opened down 0.6% while markets in China and Taiwan remain shut for the Lunar New Year holiday.
Apart from defensive pocket like FMCG, all the sectoral indices began in the negative. The major draggers in the opening trades were Consumer Durables, IT, Auto and Realty down 0.7-1%.
The major losers among the Sensex stocks were Wipro, Bharti Airtel, Tata Motors, Maruti Suzuki, Mahindra & Mahindra, TCS, Hero MotoCorp and Coal India down 1-2%. ONGC, Infosys and Bajaj Auto down 0.8% each were the other major losers.
Tata Motors slipped 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.
On the gaining side were Gail India, Sterlite, Tata Power up 0.7-0.8% were the top gainers. The other notable names were HDFC Bank, Hindalco, ITC, HDFC and L&T up 0.3% each.
The market breadth was negative. 748 stocks declined while 518 stocks advanced on the BSE.
