The markets extended losses with further downward movements post-noon. The Sensex was trading at 19,854, while the Nifty slipped marginally at 5,950, both indices down 1%.

The Midcap lost 1% at 7,741, while the Smallcap index moved further southwards at 9,589 down 2%.

A negative bias dominated the sectoral indices, with the Consumer Goods index down 1% at 15,294, followed by Realty at 2,868 down 2%, and the Bankex down 3% at 13,296.

The Oil & Gas index continued with its strong performance, and was up nearly 1% at 10,484. IT stocks moved within a tight range, and traded flat at 6,271 down barely 4 points.

Top Sensex gainers were Hindalco Industries, followed by Hero Honda and Bharti Airtel, while the losers were ICICI Bank, DLF and JP Associates.

Updated at 1330 hrs

Trading remained subdued during the noon session. The Sensex was down 90 points at 19,891, while the Nifty was at 5960 down 33 points.

The broader markets also under-performed with the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices losing nearly 1% at 7,773 and 9,771 respectively.

Gainers on the Sensex were auto major Maruti Suzuki at Rs 1,430, followed by Hindalco Industries at Rs 224 and telco Bharti Airtel at Rs 349, all up 1%.

The losers chart was led by DLF at Rs 297 down 4%, followed by ICICI Bank at Rs 1,114 and JP Associates at Rs 106, both down 3%.

Oil & Gas stocks continued to outperform with the BSE Oil & Gas up 1% at 10,514. Scrips at the helm of the gainers list were Reliance Industries at Rs 1,031, Cairn India at Rs 331 and OIL India at Rs 1,427, all up 1%.

BSE IT and BSE Teck were the only other sectoral gainers, both up marginally by less than a percent at 6,257 and 3,784 respectively.

All other sectoral indices were moving in a negative range, with the Bankex at the lowest end down 3% at 13,356. The Realt index slipped 2% at 2884 while the PSU stocks also scored negatively with the index down 1% at 9,429.

Top losers in the Bankex were Bank of India at Rs 438 and Union Bank at Rs 340, both down by a considerable 5%, while Axis Bank was down 4% at Rs 1325.

The Asian markets displayed a mixed trend, as the Nikkei 225 traded in the negative at 10,141, while the Hang Seng was up 1% at 23,369.