The Sensex opened with a huge negative gap of 456 points at 15,116 due to weak global cues.
Rising oil prices and inflation worries pushed the index into a negative zone to touch a day's low of 14,846 - down 726 points from its previous close.
Realty, IT, capital goods and oil & gas stocks suffered the most today. The index recovered partially and touch a day's high of 15,203.
The Sensex finally ended with a loss of 506 points at 15,066.
The market breadth was extremely negative - out of 2,693 stocks traded, 2,170 declined and 474 advanced and 49 were unchanged.
The NSE Nifty ended with a loss of 127 points at 4,501.
Index Shakers . . .
Jaiprakash Associates tumbled 8.6% to Rs 184. DLF plunged 7.4% at Rs 481. ONGC slipped over 7% to Rs 873.
HDFC declined 6% at Rs 2,207, while Reliance Infrastructure slipped 5.6% to Rs 1,038.
Wipro dipped 4.8% to Rs 480. TCS and Infosys shed around 4.5 each at Rs 915 and Rs 1,904, respectively.
HDFC Bank and Tata Motors were down 4.3% each to Rs 1,184 and Rs 517, respectively.
Ambuja Cements lost 4.1% to Rs 82. Satyam and Reliance declined 3.4% each at Rs 491 and Rs 2,163,
BHEL was down 3.3% at Rs 1,374, and SBI slipped 3.2% to Rs 1,293.
Larsen & Toubro and ITC lost nearly 3% to Rs 2,602 and Rs 207, respectively.
ICICI Bank and Bharti Airtel were down 2.7% each at Rs 750 and Rs 781, respectively.
ACC, Maruti and NTPC were the other major losers.
. . .And The Movers
Ranbaxy gained 3.9% at Rs 526. Reliance Communications advanced 1.3% to Rs 554.
Hindalco was up 0.2% to Rs 176.
Most Active Counters
Reliance led the value chart with a turnover of Rs 372.06 crore followed by Reliance Petroleum (Rs 252.55 crore), Cairn India (Rs 222.75 crore), Reliance Communications (Rs 214.36 crore) and Reliance Capital (Rs 211.24 crore).
IFCI topped the volume chart with trades of around 1.93 crore shares followed by Reliance Petroleum (1.52 crore), Reliance Natural Resources (1.14 crore), Ispat Industries (1.05 crore) and Cairn India (74 lakh).