The 30-share benchmark index, BSE Sensex continued to trade sluggishly today.

Buying activity was witnessed across selective capital goods, oil & gas, healthcare and auto stocks. On the other hand, IT, teck and banking scrips topped the selling charts.

At 13:06, the Sensex stood at 17,442.42, down 20.45 points with 18 components declining.

In the meantime, the Nifty was trading lower by 7.70 points at 5,225.65 with 34 components falling.

Today, the Sensex belled the day after gaining 27.65 points at 17,490.52, whereas Nifty started with a fall of 8.30 points at 5,225.05.

The top losers list comprised Infosys Tech, SBI, I C I C I Bank, HUL and Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd.

The major gainers in the 30-share index included L&T, RCom, ONGC, Tata Power, JP Associates and HDFC Bank.

The BSE Midcap index was at 6978.37 down by 4.51 points or by 0.06%.

Among sectoral indices, the IT index declined 39.06 points at 5,327.69, followed by Bankex index, which fell 73.48 points at 10,821.80 and the Metal index down by 81.07 points at 14,810.84.

In contrast, the Capital Goods index stood at 14,320.32 after making a gain of 110.95 points.