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Benchmark indices continue to maintain lower trend weighed down by rate-sensitive and Oil & Gas and Auto shares.
By 1435, Sensex plunged by 104 points at 19,466, and the Nifty down 19 points at 5,890 levels.
On the global front, Asian shares rebounded from three days of losses on Friday as new U.S. data suggested a steady recovery in the world's largest economy, bolstering investors' risk appetite while underpinning the dollar against the yen.
The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.4%, after falling earlier in the week as investors took profits from regional rallies that took some indexes to record peaks or multi-year highs.
Hong Kong shares rose 0.5% and Shanghai shares soared 1.3%, led by banking and railway counters on restructuring of the mainland's vast rail operations.
Back home, BSE Realty index has crumbled by over 2% followed by counters like Banks, Oil & Gas, Auto, Metal, Capital Goods, FMCG and PSU, all declining between 0.1-1%. However, BSE Consumer Durable index has surged by nearly 2%.
Private banking majors ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank were down 2.4% and 1.5%, respectively on profit taking at higher levels after gains in late trades yesterday.
Among other Sensex losers Tata Motors was down 1.6% at Rs 296 and index heavyweight Reliance Industries was down 0.6% at Rs 855.
Shares of software exporters firmed up on the back of encouraging economic data from the US. Infosys was up 0.9% at Rs 2,900 and TCS was up 0.4% at Rs 1,573. Motilal Oswal has a 'buy' call on Infosys. The brokerage believes that 3QFY13 may only have been the first quarter of a visible momentum in the company's growth, and that there is further upside in the stock from current levels, Motilal Oswal said in a report.
ICICI Bank has dipped almost 5% to Rs 1,056 on BSE in noon deals on back of heavy volumes on reports that the government is investigating the allegations of money laundering practices.
State Bank of India had paid Rs 1,450 crore this quarter against Rs 1,650 crore last March.
Other Sensex stocks which were marginally up include, HDFC, ONGC and Hindustan Unilever.
The broader markets are trading weak with the Small-cap index down 0.6% and the Mid-cap index was is down by 0.2%.
Market breadth was weak with 1,637 stocks declining and 1,090 stocks gaining.
