Mumbai, Feb. 12 -- The domestic equity benchmarks traded with substantial losses in early trade. The Nifty traded below the 23,000 level. Barring the IT index, all the other sectoral indices on the NSE were traded in red.

At 09:30 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, slipped 301.84 points or 0.43% to 75,965.74. The Nifty 50 index lost 94.60 points or 0.41% to 22,977.20.

The broader market underperformed the frontline indices. The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index fell 1.54%, and the S&P BSE Small-Cap index declined 1.90%.

The market breadth was weak. On the BSE, 780 shares rose and 2,182 shares fell. A total of 123 shares were unchanged.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth Rs 4,486.41 crore, while domestic institutional ...