The 30-share bellwether index of the Bombay Stock Exchange, Sensex opened with a negative note on Tuesday ahead of the Railway Budget 2013, which will be presented by the Railways Minister, Pawan Kumar Bansal in Parliament today. The investors’ sentiments were further dampened by weak trend in the Asian markets, led by Japan’s Nikkei 225 that was trading down by 209 points. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng and Singapore’s Straits Times were also trading in red, down by 143 and 16 points, respectively.

The weakness in Asian markets was attributable to overnight losses in the US stocks, which followed concern over Italy’s elections. A strong showing in Italian elections by groups opposed to the country’s economic reforms triggered worry that Europe’s debt problems could once again destabilize the global economy.

At 9:25AM, BSE SENSEX was trading at 19239.43, down by 92.26 points or by 0.48 per cent and the NSE’s wide-based Nifty was at 5838.3, down by 16.45 points or by 0.28 per cent.

The BSE MIDCAP was trading at 6487.27, down by 42.26 points or by 0.65 per cent, while the BSE SMLCAP was at 6447.28, down by 28.37 points or by 0.44 per cent.

The top gainers of the BSE Sensex pack were Bharti Airtel Ltd. (Rs. 320.10,+4.25%), Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd. (Rs. 209.45,+0.92%), Infosys Ltd. (Rs. 2929.95,+0.44%), Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (Rs. 1475.85,+0.31%), ITC Ltd. (Rs. 292.55,+0.17%), among others.

The top losers of the BSE Sensex pack were Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. (Rs. 1412.35,-2.09%), Tata Motors Ltd. (Rs. 294.20,-1.62%), Larsen & Toubro Ltd. (Rs. 1381.20,-1.45%), Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. (Rs. 882.65,-1.39%), ICICI Bank Ltd. (Rs. 1079.00,-1.35%), among others.

The Market breadth, indicating the overall strength of the market, was weak. On BSE, out of total 1053 shares traded, 341 shares advanced, 679 shares declined, while 33 remain unchanged.