Sensex extends losses for second day, drops 103 pts

Extending losses for the second straight day, the benchmark BSE Sensex fell by another 103 points in early trade today on selling mainly in banking, auto, realty and refinery sector stocks on the back of lower Asian cues.
ICICI Bank slipped by 1.72 per cent and HDFC Bank by 1.54 per cent as the stock also turned ex-dividend today.
The Sensex resumed slightly higher at 24,828.38 and moved in a range of 24,664.88 and 24,831.79 before quoting at 24,702.38 at 1000 hours, showing a loss of 103.45 points, or 0.42 per cent, from its last close.
The NSE 50-share Nifty also moved down by 26.95 points, or 0.36 per cent, to 7,375.30 at 1000 hours.

Major losers were ONGC (1.92 pct), ICICI Bank (1.72 pct), Tata Power (1.65 pct), HDFC Bank (1.54 pct), NTPC (1.39 pct) and Hero Motocorp (1.30 pct).
Asian stocks edged lower in their early trade today as investors await a European Central Bank policy decision later in the global day.

Key benchmark indices in Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China were down 0.07 pct to 0.81 pct and Japan's Nikkei Average rose 0.05 pct.
HSBC/Markit's measure of the China service sector eased to 50.7 in May from April's 51.4, though that was still above the 50-point level that is supposed to separate growth from contraction.

However, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 192.56 crore as per provisional data from the stock exchanges.