The BSE benchmark Sensex trimmed its early losses but was still down by 17 points in late morning trade on Friday on mild selling pressure in capital goods, metal, realty and auto sectors on weak Asian cues.
The 30-share index Sensex resumed steady at 20,725.52, but dropped to 20,645.00 immediately on initial profit booking. However, it recovered afterwards to 20,733.82 on sustained foreign capital inflows before quoting at 20,707.94 points at 1030 hours (IST).
The NSE 50-share barometer Nifty also moved down by 15.05 points to 6,149.30.
Major losers were — Hindalco Ind (3.62 pct), BHEL (2.75 pct), Tata Steel (2.09 pct), Larsen (1.82 pct) and Bharti Airtel (1.82 pct).
However, gainers were Wipro (2.19 pct), TCS (1.68 pct), SSLT (1.59 pct), Infosys (0.76 pct) and ICICI Bank (0.59 pct).
Key benchmark indices in Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Japan, Indonesia and South Korea fell by 0.12 to 1.19 per cent.