Indian equity benchmarks trimmed some of the losses but continued to trade in the negative territory during the afternoon trade on Monday on sustained selling by participants mainly in the metal and oil & gas sector stocks, amid weak cues from fellow Asian peers.

At 2:06 hours, the 30-share barometer index of Bombay Stock Exchange, Sensex was at 29,245.67 down by 175.73 points or 0.6 per cent while the NSE Nifty was at 9,054.35 down by 53.65 points or 0.59 per cent.

Global equities witnessed selling pressure mainly on account of the US President Trump's failure to push through his healthcare bill, raised speculation that he may struggle with other policies too.

Back home, shares of Reliance Industries fell nearly 2.59 per cent after Sebi banned RIL from equity derivatives trading for a year and directed it to disgorge nearly Rs 1,000 crore for unlawful gains made via alleged fraudulent trading.

Major show spoilers were Tata Steel Ltd. (Rs. 477.90,-3.10%), Reliance Industries Ltd. (Rs. 1252.85,-2.59%), Coal India Ltd. (Rs. 291.45,-2.21%), Wipro Ltd. (Rs. 504.75,-1.51%), Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (Rs. 692.80,-1.49%), among others.

The top gainers of the BSE Sensex pack were State Bank of India (Rs. 279.60,+1.29%), Dr. Reddy's Laboratories Ltd. (Rs. 2643.00,+0.75%), Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd. (Rs. 194.75,+0.54%), Hindustan Unilever Ltd. (Rs. 904.00,+0.48%), Infosys Ltd. (Rs. 1035.50,+0.36%), among others.

The market breadth, indicating the overall strength of the market, was weak. On BSE, out of the total 2923 shares traded, 1108 advanced while 1616 shares declined and 199 remained unchanged.