Indian stock markets slipped in red owing to lack of buying action and passive Asian markets.

Metals, real estate and FMCG scrips remained the top losers whereas pharmaceutical and auto scrips showed some resistance.

According to India Infoline report, "Volume may be hit due to the railway motormen strike in Mumbai. Suddenly, thousands of opportunities may appear to come your way but make sure you don't get carried away. Tuesdays are often infamous to start one way and end the other way. Despite the positive outlook for the day, the overall prospects appear to be rather murky in the near term. The key indices have been choppy and rangebound for several weeks and that trend may not change for some time to come."

At 12:15 pm, the BSE's Sensex stood at 17370.77, down 15.31 points after hitting a low of 17352.05 and a high of 17464.82.

The broad-based Nifty stood at 5229.35, up 6.6 points. It hit a low of 5215.55 and high of 5250.15 in trade so far.

BSE Midcap Index declined 0.19% and BSE Smallcap Index climbed 0.28% up.

Amongst the sectoral indices, BSE Metals Index lost 1.45% and BSE Realty Index dropped 0.78%.

BSE Healthcare Index gained 0.49% and BSE Auto Index was up by 0.42%.

The major losers list included Hindalco (-2.77%), Bharti Airtel (-1.80%), Tata Steel (-1.78%), Sterlite Industries (-1.31%) and ACC (-0.79%).

Mahindra & Mahindra (1.44%), HDFC (1.19%), Tata Motors (1.15%), RIL (0.82%) and L&T (0.73%) were the top gainers.

The overall breadth of the stock market was positive as it saw 1396 progressions as against 1277 declinationss. (With Inputs from Agencies)