The 30-share index, BSE Sensex continued to trade pessimistically as intense selling pressure was seen in banking realty, FMCG and metal stocks, whereas auto stock managed to trade in the positive terrain.

Midcap and Smallcap index fell 1.29% and 0.81% respectively.

At 2.54 p.m., Sensex lost 221.15 points or 1.64% at 13,297.65. It also touched a high of 13,620.74 and a low of 13,127.96.

In contrast, the broad based Nifty stood at 4,016.65, down 58.25 points. It also touched a high of 4,116.70 and a low of 3,974.60.

The overall market breadth was negative as it saw 928 advancements as against 1,644 declinations.

London/New York - Britain's Barclays bank has agreed to buy some of the core assets of stricken US investment bank Lehman Brothers for 1 billion pounds (1.75 billion dollars), the two banks said Wednesday.

Barclays had bought Lehman's North American investment banking and trading unit for 250 million dollars, and paid 1.5 billion dollars for its New York headquarters and two data centres following negotiations in New York.

Washington - The mammoth international insurance firm American International Group Inc (AIG) early Wednesday moved to reassure policyholders over the US government's 85-billion-dollar bailout while Democrats laid the blame on the White House for failing to regulate the finance industry.

In a statement late Tuesday, AIG conceded it had "serious liquidity issues" but said it believed the loan would "protect all AIG policyholders, address rating agency concerns and give AIG the time necessary to conduct asset sales on an orderly basis."

Stock market analyst, Vishwas Agarwal stated that on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) above 13,350, some trading upmoves up to 13,876 level, will be expected only on positive news from Fed meet in US.

If any encouraging news will emerge of this meeting, investors can expect short covering to happen after 2,000 points drop, but this relief recovery cannot be considered as a come back of bull trend, it’s just a relief recovery.

The Sensex continued its negative journey in today’s session (Sep 17) because of heavy selling activity seen across FMCG, metal and banking stocks, while selective buying action was witnessed in IT, auto and real estate segments.

Today, the 30-share index, BSE Sensex opened at 13,620.74, up 101.94 points, as against its last closure at 13,518.80, down 12.47 points on Tuesday (Sep 16).

At 11:04 a.m., the BSE Sensex stood at 13,386.26, down 132.54 points, after hitting a high of 13,620.74 and a low of 13,329.98.

Friday saw the Sensex falling more than 2% mainly due to decline of IT stocks. The fall is surprising, considering the rupee is depreciating against the dollar.

When the rupee weakened and closed at 45.72 to the dollar, BSE IT became the biggest index loser on Friday as it saw a fall of 4.60 per cent.

Mr Gaurav Dua, Head of Research, Sharekhan Ltd, reported, “It is the rupee’s recent appreciation against the euro and the pound which will have a negative impact on the Indian GAAP numbers of IT companies. To make matters worse, the US dollar has been appreciating against the euro and the pound, and when revenues billed in these currencies are consolidated under US GAAP, they will show a dip.”