Market drops heavily

The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 108 points at 20,836 and touched a high of 20,873 in early deals. The index slipped into negative zone soon, and exhibited a weak trend for the rest of the trading day.

Heavy selling towards the close saw the index plunge to a low of 20,204 - down 669 points from the day's high. The Sensex finally ended with a significant loss of 477 points (2.3%) at 20,251.

The BSE Power and Teck indices plunged 2.5% each to 4632 and 3624, respectively. The Bankex and FMCG index shed 2.3% each at 12,258 and 2354, respectively.

The NSE Nifty declined over 2% (133 points) to 6074.

The breadth was fairly negative on the BSE - out of 2,888 stocks traded, 1,868 declined, 989 advanced and 31 were unchanged today.

INDEX SHAKERS...

Bharti Airtel slumped 5.5% to Rs 857. Reliance Energy tumbled 4.5% to Rs 2,365.

ICICI Bank, NTPC and ITC plunged around 4% each to Rs 1,351, Rs 274 and Rs 216, respectively.

Reliance Communications shed 3.5% at Rs 777. Hindalco, Satyam and Mahindra & Mahindra slipped around 3% each to Rs 196, Rs 388 and Rs 734, respectively.

Larsen & Toubro, HDFC and DLF dropped around 2.5% each to Rs 4,062, Rs 2,904 and Rs 1,176, respectively.

Ranbaxy, BHEL and TCS declined 2.3% each to Rs 390, Rs 2,416 and Rs 938, respectively.

SBI and Infosys were down almost 2% each at Rs 2,414 and Rs 1,502, respectively.

Reliance and Hindustan Unilever dropped over 1.5% each to Rs 3,162 and Rs 216, respectively.

...AND THE MOVERS

Tata Steel and Maruti advanced around 1.5% each to Rs 852 and Rs 867, respectively.


MOST ACTIVE COUNTERS

Reliance Natural Resources topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 545 crore followed by Indiabulls (Rs 406.80 crore), Reliance (Rs 286.50 crore), Aries Agro (Rs 284.80 crore) and Reliance Energy (Rs 241.60 crore).

Reliance Natural Resources led the volume chart with trades of around 2.45 crore shares followed by Centurion Bank of Punjab (1.63 crore), Aries Agro (1.21 crore), Ispat Industries (1.12 crore) and G V Films (1.08 crore).