The Sensex at the Bombay Stock Exchange, which fell by 163 points in the early trade today, lost further ground in late morning deals and was trading 228 points in the negative territory at 17,409, when reports last came in. After gaining 53 points in the previous two sessions, the 30-share index fell by 163 points to 17,474 points in the early trade today on fresh selling by funds, amid a weak trend on other Asian bourses.In a similar fashion, the wide-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty was trading 68 points down at 5,292. In Asia, the Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell by 0.18 per cent, while Japan's Nikkei was down by 0.21 per cent higher in the early trade today.