Markets open lower, Nifty slips below 6,100

Markets open lower tracking weakness in Asia and overnight losses on Wall Street.

Benchmark shares indices opended lower tracking weakness in Asia and overnight losses on Wall Street with financials and index heavyweights leading the decline.

At 9:30AM, the 30-share Sensex was down 170 points at 20,464 and the 50-share Nifty wasd down 52 points at 6,070.

Asian markets except Japan were trading lower on the back of weak manufacturing data from

China and worries over US Fed stimulus tapering. Shares in Japan were trading higher on the

back of weaker yen. The Nikkei was up 1.3%. Among other indices in the region, Shanghai

Composite, Straits Times and Hang Seng were down 0.5-1% each.

The Dow Jones and S&P 500 extended losses on Wednesday after the minutes of the last

Federal Reserve's meeting hinted that the central bank would start pruning down its

monetary stimulus measures sooner-than-expected.

The Dow Jones Industrial average ended down 66 points, or 0.4%, to end at 15,900.82. The

Standard & Poor's 500 Index lost nearly 7 points, or 0.4% at 1,781.37. The tech laden

Nasdaq Composite Index ended down 10 points or 0.3% at 3,921.27.

Key European shares ended mixed on Wednesday. The CAC-40 ended down 4 points lower at

4,268.37, the DAX gained 9 points to end at 9,202.07, while the FTSE-100 ended 17 points

down at 6,681.08

The Indian rupee was trading weak in early trades at Rs 62.84 to the US dollar compared to Wednesday's close of 62.67.

The BSE Bankex was the top loser among the sectoral indices down 1.5% followed by Oil and Gas, Capital Goods, POwer, Realty, Auto and FMCG among others.

Financial shares witnessed further profit booking in early trades. HDFC Bank, HDFC, ICICI Bank and SBI were down 1-1.2% each.

Among the index heavyweights Reliance Ind was down 1% on reports that the company has been fined $792 million for producing less than natural gas from its eastern offshore KG-D6 block.

Other Sensex losers include ITC, Infosys, Hindustan Unilever among others.

Gail India was marginally up on talks that the commpany plans to enter LNG business and acquiring upstream assets in Tanzania.

In the broader market, the Mid-cap index was down 0.2% and the Small-cap index was trading flat with positive bias.

Market breadth was negative with 452 losers and 411 gainers on the BSE.