The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 78 points at 19,339, and touched a high of 19,375 in morning deals.
A late bout of selling saw the index plunge to a low of 19,009 - an intra-day swing of 366 points.
The Sensex finally closed with a loss of 182 points (0.94%) at 19,080. The Nifty lost 35 points to close at 5,742.
The market breadth was bearish - out of 2,930 scrips traded, 1,669 declined and 1,227 moved up today.
Index losers...
Hindustan Unilever dropped over 3% to Rs 211.
L&T slipped nearly 3% to Rs 3,968.
HDFC and ICICI Bank declined over 2% t
o Rs 2,812 and Rs 1,141, respectively.
Reliance was down 1.8% at Rs 2,729.
ONGC, HDFC Bank, REL and M&M also declined today.
...And gainers
Cipla was firm right through the day, and finished with a gain of nearly 4% at Rs 216.
ITC was up 2% at Rs 198.
NTPC and Ranbaxy closed with gains of over 1% each at Rs 232 and Rs 410, respectively.
Most active counters
ONGC was the most active counter with a turnover of Rs 388 crore followed by Ispat (Rs 260 crore), Reliance Petroleum (Rs 227 crore), Reliance (Rs 174 crore) and Reliance Capital (Rs 133 crore).