The Sensex opened 92 points lower this morning, following yesterday's 330-pt fall, at 9,213. Significant weakness in realy, metal and banking stocks saw the index widen losses as the day progressed.
The index, slipped below the 9,000-mark, to a low of 8,994 - down 311 points. The Sensex finally ended with a loss of 270 points at 9,035. The NSE Nifty ended at 2771, down 78 points.
The BSE Realty and Capital Goods indices plunged nearly 5% each to 1,446 and 1,591, respectively. The Bankex dropped 4.4% to 4,583.
The market breadth was fairly negative -- out of 2,503 stocks traded, 1,712 declined, 688 advanced and the rest are unchanged.
INDEX SHAKERS...
Tata Steel slumped 6.7% to Rs 172. ICICI Bank tumbled 5.7% to Rs 386.
DLF and Mahindra & Mahindra plunged 5% each to Rs 148 and Rs 299, respectively.
Hindalco shed 4.7% at Rs 42. Reliance Communications and HDFC dropped around 4.5% each to Rs 163 and Rs 1,432, respectively.
Reliance, Tata Power and HDFC Bank slipped nearly 4% each to Rs 1,268, Rs 746 and Rs 880, respectively.
Infosys, Maruti, Tata Motors and Sterlite declined around 3.5% each to Rs 1,178, Rs 599, Rs 132 and Rs 254, respectively.
SBI, TCS and Wipro were down around 3% each at Rs 1,100, Rs 486 and Rs 210, respectively.
MOST ACTIVE COUNTERS
Relaince topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 179.66 crore followed by Educomp Solutions (Rs 178.52 crore), United Spirits (Rs 126.47 crore), ICICI Bank (Rs 124.32 crore) and Satyam (Rs 109.60 crore).
Satyam led the volume chart with trades of around 2.21 crore shares followed by Unitech (1.11 crore), Suzlon (97 lakh), Hexaware (83.80 lakh) and Cals Refineries (77.65 lakh).