Sensex below 19K, Bankex weighs

The Sensex closed below the 19,000 mark on the first trading day of the week on the back of selling pressure witnesed in the banking and consumer durables space.

The BSE benchmark index closed around the day's low of 18,955, down 269 points from the day's opening.

The Nifty closed down 48 points at 5,701 while the Sensex shed 138 points to end the day at 18,998.

This is in stark contrast to the Asian and European markets which are trading in the green.

Earlier in the day, the markets opened in the green tracking firm Asian peers, but immediately turned negative few minutes after opening as investors sold banking shares ahead of Reserve Bank of India's policy announcement on Tuesday.

Thereon the downtrend continued through the morning. However, in the late morning trades the markets staged a partial recovery on the back of buying interest seen in the realty and health care space.

Meanwhile, market heavyweight, Reliance Industries which has been moving south since the past few days played spoil sport once again during the partial recovery phase dragging

the Sensex further down.

The markets registered fresh intra-day lows through the afternoon session.

However, there is some positive news from the industrial production data. Led by crude oil and finished steel, the output of the six core infrastructure industries grew by 7.4% in March, 2011, an improvement from the 6.8% expansion recorded a year ago.

Navneet Daga, Derivative Analyst, KR Choksey Securities said, "Options data is indicating a further decline on the index to sub 5629 levels and 5600 may act as support because it has maximum open interest build up."

Daga added, "If Nifty fails to hold above 5750 on closing basis for next two to three sessions, we may see selling pressure getting intense in the market towards 5620 levels and a close below 5750 would lead to further long liquidation of positions."