Equity benchmark indices skidded by over half a per cent during early hours on Friday with steel stocks being under selling pressure.
At 10:15 am, the BSE S&P Sensex was down by 302 points or 0.54 per cent at 55,328 while the Nifty 50 tumbled by 111 points or 0.67 per cent to 16,458.
Except for Nifty IT, all sectoral indices were in the red with Nifty metal plunging by 3.2 per cent, PSU bank, private bank and realty by 0.8 per cent each, and auto by 0.4 per cent.
Among stocks, Hindalco dipped by 4.6 per cent to Rs 407.05 per share while Tata Steel cracked by 4.3 per cent and JSW Steel by 3.8 per cent.
The other prominent losers were ONGC, Dr Reddy's, Tata Motors, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Axis Bank and agro-chemicals manufacturer UPL.
However, Bharti Airtel, Maruti Suzuki, HDFC and FMCG majors like Hindustan Unilever, Britannia, Nestle India and Tata Consumer Products witnessed marginal gains.
Meanwhile, Asian shares extended losses from the 2021 low set a day earlier. Hong Kong shares were lower by 2.28 per cent as tech stocks weighed.
Japan's Nikkei was down by 0.67 per cent with investors eyeing increasing virus cases and South Korea's Kospi fell by 0.8 per cent.
( With inputs from ANI )
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