Markets remain under pressure

The Sensex is at 18,424, lower by 93 points and the Nifty is at 5519, down 32 points in  the mid-morning session. Banking, auto and IT are doing most of the damage.

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(Updated at 1051am)

After a reasonably positive start to the day, the markets have slipped back into negative territory on the back of fresh weakness in select auto and bank stocks. The Sensex, which, touched a high of 18,644, has tumbled to a low of 18,367 - down 277 points from the day's high.

The Sensex is now down 91 points at 18,427. The NSE Nifty has declined 33 points to 5,519.

The BSE Auto index and Bankex have dropped over 1% each to 9,110 and 12,527, respectively.

The market breadth, however, is almost neutral with 1,076 shares advancing versus 1,126 declining stocks on the BSE. This is mainly due to a positive bias seen in mid-cap and small-cap stocks, both indices marginally in green.

Among the Sensex 30 stocks - Hindalco, Tata Power and Bharti Airtel have advanced over 1% each to Rs 204, Rs 1,242 and Rs 354, respectively.

On the other hand, Jaiprakash Associates and Tata Motors have dropped over 2% each to Rs 84.60 and Rs 1,176, respectively.

HDFC Bank, Hero Honda, TCS, Maruti, Bajaj Auto, SBI and Wipro are the other prominent losers.

In the broader markets, Piramal Healthcare, SKS Microfinance, GE Shipping, Bank of India, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Financial Technoclogies and BGR Energy are some of the major losers.

MRPL, Cadila Healthcare, HDIL, Nestle, Jindal Saw, Federal Bank, Jubilant Food, Opto Circuits and Indiabulls Financials are the other major gainers.