The Sensex, which opened with a huge negative gap of 288 points at 15,488, dropped to a low of 15,160 in noon deals on weak global cues -- down 616 points from the previous close.

The index finally closed with a huge loss of 542 points (3.43%) at 15,234. The NSE Nifty ended at 4,442, down 178 points.

All the sectoral indices dropped sharply on Friday. The BSE Realty Index plunged over 5% to 7824. The BSE PSU Index dropped over 4% to 6983.

The broad market breadth was extremely bearish -- out of 2,575 scrips traded, 1,954 declined on Friday.

All Fall Down

Tata Steel [Get Quote] plunged over 7% (Rs 52) to Rs 652. Reliance Communications [Get Quote] slipped nearly 6% to Rs 537. BHEL declined over 5% to Rs 1,660.

Hindustan Unilever dropped over 4% to Rs 196, and Reliance was down nearly 4% at Rs 1,866.

ONGC [Get Quote], SBI [Get Quote], Tata Motors [Get Quote], Wipro [Get Quote] and Bajaj also declined sharply on Friday.

ITC, however, moved up over 3% to Rs 172. Ranbaxy [Get Quote] and Ambuja Cements finished with marginal gains.

Most Active Counters

Reliance was the most active counter with a turnover of Rs 414 crore (Rs 4.14 billion) followed by HDFC [Get Quote] (Rs 296 crore or Rs 2.96 billion), Reliance Energy [Get Quote] (Rs 239 crore or Rs 2.39 billion), DLF (Rs 235 crore or Rs 2.35 billion) and L&T (Rs 172 crore or Rs 1.72 billion).

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