Sensex slips further; banks, realty, oil & gas down

The Sensex slipped further after a quiet start in the early trade. All the BSE sectoral indices were trading in the negative terrain. Heavy sell-off was seen in banks, realty, oil & gas and IT stocks. ITC, Reliance, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Infosys were the negative contributors to the Sensex. The broader indices were trading flat.

Despite the strength shown in the past few days, Anil Manghnani of Modern Shares & Stock Brokers is of the view that the market is still in a corrective mode. The Nifty may move lower to test the levels around 5,125-5,150. However, because the market is not experiencing sharp falls, he believes even two days of good movements will help negate the losses.

"I believe 5280-5305 range would be the key take out. Once we take that out then we would negate this downward trend, just a corrective mode," he said.

The Sensex was down 110.30 points or 0.64% at 17168.55, and the Nifty was down 35.35 points or 0.67% at 5207.35.

About 964 shares advanced, 989 shares declined, and 1,482 shares remained unchanged.

Top losers on the Sensex were Dr Reddys Labs at Rs 1,606.50 down 2.97%, Sterlite Ind at Rs 103.75 down 1.98%, Hero Motocorp at Rs 2,049.95 down 1.8%, Infosys at Rs 2,211.80 down 1.38% and Tata Power at Rs 99.35 down 1.34%.

Index heavyweight Reliance was trading at Rs 719.45, down 1.14% from its previous close of Rs 727.75.

Tech major Infosys was trading at Rs 2,211.80, down 1.38% from its previous close of Rs 2,242.85.

Refinery major HPCL was trading at Rs 344.80, down 1.19% from its previous close of Rs 348.95.