The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 106 points at 14,032, and touched a high of 14,0666. But, the index, soon slipped into the negative zone on account of weakness in technology stocks.
Just when the markets were recovering came another jolt. Poor IIP numbers for the month of May, triggered a fresh round of selling, especially the capital goods stocks began to slide... Unabted selling, thereafter, saw the index tumble to a low of 13,351 - down 715 points from the day's high.
The Sensex finally ended with a significant loss of 456 points at 13,470.
The market breadth was negative - out of 2,711 stocks traded, 1,651 declined, 997 advanced and the rest were unchanged on Friday.
The BSE IT index tumbled 6.7% to 3,908. The Capital Goods index plunged 5% to 10,774.
The NSE Nifty dropped 113 points to settle at 4,049.
INDEX SHAKERS. . .
Technology stocks bore the brunt of the selling. TCS has plunged 8% to Rs 799. Satyam and Infosys tumbled around 7% each to Rs 444 and Rs 1,676, respectively. Wipro declined 4.3% to Rs 412.
Jaiprakash Associates has slumped 8.5% to Rs 157. Larsen & Toubro plunged 7% to Rs 2,357.
Reliance Infrastructure shed 6.3% at Rs 801. HDFC dropped 5.5% to Rs 2,001.
Tata Steel slipped 4.7% to Rs 666. ICICI Bank declined over 4% to Rs 412.
ONGC shed 3.7% at Rs 849, and NTPC was down 3% at Rs 162.
BHEL and ITC slipped 2.7% each to Rs 1,521 and Rs 174,
. . .AND THE MOVERS
Ambuja Cements moved up nearly 2% to Rs 81.
HDFC Bank and Hindalco advanced over 1% each to Rs 1,067 and Rs 155, respectively.
VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS
Reliance Capital topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 390 crore followed by Infosys (Rs 358.50 crore), Reliance (Rs 279.25 crore), Reliance Infrastructure (Rs 176.80 crore) and Larsen & Toubro (Rs 147.50 crore).
IFCI led the volume chart with trades of around 2.10 crore shares followed by Reliance Natural Resources (2.02 crore), Lotus Eye care (Rs 1.94 crore), Ispat Industries (1.60 crore) and Chambal Fertlisers (1.05 crore).