The benchmark indices pared all intraday gains to slip in red in noon deals as investors turned cautious ahead of the F&O expiry of May series due tomorrow. Investors also awaited the minutes of US Federal Reserve's May policy meeting due later in the day.
At 2:52 pm, the S&P BSE Sensex was trading at 30,271, down 93 points, while the broader Nifty50 was ruling at 9,347, down 39 points.
In the broader market, the S&P BSE Midcap and the S&P BSE Smallcap indices slipped over 1% each.
The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, turned negative from positive. On BSE, 1,302 shares fell and 1,104 shares rose. A total of 147 shares were unchanged.
All sectoral indices were moving in red terrain with Nifty Realty, Nifty Metal, Nifty PSU Bank and Nifty Pharma losing the most.
Cipla, Hindalco and ACC were the worst performing stocks on the NSE, which shed up to 4%.
Max Financial Services tanked over 12% to Rs 541 after Business Standard reported that HDFC Life was getting back into the IPO mode since getting regulatory approvals for a merger with Max Life was taking an inordinate amount of time. CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL REPORT
Among gainers, Tata Motors climbed as much as 5% after the company reported March-quarter profit that beat analysts' estimates on Tuesday.
Voltas jumped as much as 10% to a record high, after the air conditioning and engineering company on Tuesday posted a better-than-expected jump in quarterly profit.
Jubilant Life Sciences gained over 12% after the company's consolidated net profit zoomed nearly 14-fold to Rs 149.03 crore in the March quarter on robust sales.