Following the stupendous run yesterday, the markets opened with modest loss today on the back of weak cues from the global markets. Market breadth was positive with over 550 stocks on the advancing side and about 300 stocks on the decline side.

At 9:56 am, Sensex was down 94 points at 19834 and Nifty was down 1 points at 5937. major gainers in the opening move were Hindalco, L&T, BHEL, Tisco, Tata Motors, Rel Energy, ONGC, Bharti, Airtel and Essar Oil.

Asian markets were trading lower. Hong Kong's Hang Seng plunged 0.53% or 153.32 points at 29,012.69, Taiwan's Taiwan Weighted fell 0.21% or 18.53 points at 8,924.40, Singapore's Straits Times tumbled 0.62% or 22.03 points at 3,502.88, South Korea's Seoul Composite was down 0.30% or 5.95 points at 1,966.63. However, Japan's Nikkei rose 0.34% or 52.53 points at 15,552.09.

US markets: The Dow fell 76.08 points, or 0.57%, to 13,231.01. Broader stock indicators also fell. The Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 10.47 points, or 0.71%, to 1,470.58, while the Nasdaq composite index tumbled 29.33 points, or 1.10%, to 2,644.32.