Maintaining the downward trend, the Sensex at the Bombay Stock Exchange was trading 269 points in the negative territory at 17,368 in afternoon trade, when reports last came in. 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 81 points down at 5,278.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.