The Sensex and the Nifty opened the session marginally in the red on continued selling by funds and retail investors in select stocks amid mixed Asian cues.

The 30-share BSE index Sensex was trading down 42.13 points or 0.2 percent at 21,208.99 and the 50-share NSE index Nifty was trading down 17.6 points or 0.28 percent at 6,296.20 on Wednesday.

Asian stocks swung between gains and losses ahead of the release of Bank of Japan monetary policy statement.

Japan’s Nikkei Index was down 0.21 percent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index up 0.03 percent, China’s Shanghai Index up 1.67 percent and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index down 0.44 percent.