Trading in US index futures also indicated that the Dow

Jones could fall 17 points at the opening bell today.
Turning to the local market, 29 out of the 30-share Sensex scrips fell, except Gail India that inched up.
Major Sensex losers were Jindal Steel (4.19 pc), Tata Steel (4.18 pc, Sterlite Ind (3.77 pc), ICICI Bank (3.77 pc), Hindalco Ind (3.54 pc), Bharti Airtel (2.79 pc), Maruti Suzuki (2.48 pc), ONGC (2.31 pc), L&T (2.17 pc) and RIL (2.12 pc).
Tata Motors (2.04 pc), BHEL (1.99 pc), HUL (1.92 pc), SBI (1.84 pc), M&M (1.69 pc), Wipro (1.53 pc) and ITC (1.17 pc) also suffered sharp losses.
Among the sectoral indices, the BSE-Metal dropped by 3.23 per cent, followed by Bankex (2.52 pc), the BSE-Realty (2.33 pc), the BSE-Capital Goods (2.07 pc), the BSE-Oil&Gas (1.77 pc), the BSE PSU (1.72 pc) and the BSE Auto (1.50 pc).

The market breadth turned negative as 1,929 scrips ended down while 904 scrips finished up. Only 128 stocks ended flat.

"Nifty saw a steep correction followed by higher level of Global and Indian VIX with which Nifty has a negative correlation. Emerging markets have a positive correlation with commodity prices and falling commodity prices is a sign of correction in equities," said Shubham Agarwal, Associate VP & Senior Technical Equities Analyst, Motilal Oswal Securities.
The total turnover improved further to Rs 1,957.61 crore from Rs 1,825.23 crore yesterday.
Meanwhile, Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 433.59 crore yesterday as per provisional data from the stock exchanges.