The index soon plunged to a low of 17,308 - down 9.2% (1,744 points) - following which trading was suspended for one hour - only the 3rd instance in the last three years.

The first trading halt happened on May 17, 2004 when the index crashed 16.6% (a swing of 842 points) in intra-day deals following the change in government. The second instance was on May 22, 2004 when the Sensex hit the lower circuit, and the intra-day swing was 1,316 points on account of a meltdown in global metal stocks.

The statement by Finance Minister P Chidambaram that there is no proposal to ban PNs, and overseas investors are welcome to invest in India via the FII route helped the index recover after the 1-hour trading halt.

Sebi, in a clarification, reiterated that there is no proposal to ban PNs, and FIIs can write/renew PNs with a timelimit of 18 months, which also boosted sentiment.

The Sensex recovered sharply from the day's low (17,308 points) and touched an intra-day high of 18,841 points - up 1,533 points (8.9%) from the day's low.

The Sensex finally ended with a loss of 336 points (1.8%) at 18,716.

The Nifty closed at 5,559, down 109 points.

The market breadth was fairly negative - out of 2,724 stocks traded, 1,755 declined, 923 advanced and 46 were unchanged today.

INDEX SHAKERS...

Reliance Energy [Get Quote] slumped 7.5% to Rs 1,762. ACC and SBI [Get Quote] plunged 5% each to Rs 1,203 and Rs 1,829, respectively.

BHEL and NTPC tumbled over 4.5% each to Rs 2,283 and Rs 221, respectively.

Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Steel [Get Quote], HDFC [Get Quote] and ONGC [Get Quote] slipped around 4% each to Rs 780, Rs 869, Rs 2,470 and Rs 1,130, respectively.

ICICI Bank [Get Quote], Bharti Airtel [Get Quote], Reliance Communications [Get Quote] and HDFC Bank dropped 3% each to Rs 1,121, Rs 1,076, Rs 737 and Rs 1,460, respectively.

Cipla, Ambuja Cements and Dr.Reddy's shed around 2.5% each to Rs 179, Rs 149 and Rs 606, respectively.

Ranbaxy [Get Quote], Grasim [Get Quote], Bajaj Auto [Get Quote] and Hindustan Unilever were down around 2% each to Rs 420, Rs 3,675, Rs 2,489 and Rs 208, respectively.

...AND THE MOVERS

TCS [Get Quote] surged 2.5% to Rs 1,095. Satyam [Get Quote] advanced 1.6% to Rs 457, and Infosys [Get Quote] added 1% to Rs 1,890.

Reliance moved up over 1.5% to Rs 2,690.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 988.50 crore followed by Reliance Energy (Rs 794.30 crore), Power Grid (Rs 607.50 crore), Tata Power [Get Quote] (Rs 401.20 crore) and Reliance Petroleum [Get Quote] (Rs 398.80 crore).

Power Grid led the volume chart with trades of around 4.77 crore shares followed by Reliance Natural Resources [Get Quote] (3.68 crore), Reliance Petroleum (2.27 crore), Tata Teleservices [Get Quote] (2.21 crore) and IFCI (1.22 crore).