The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 176 points at 16,591, and soon touched a day's high of 16,633.

Unabated selling in afternoon trades saw the index pared gains and drop to a low of 15,991- down 642 points from day's high. Realty, PSU, metal and power stocks were hit the most.

The index finally ended with a loss of 352 points at 16,063.

The market breadth was negative - out of 2,716 stocks traded, 2,066 declined, 600 advanced and 50 were unchanged on Monday.

The NSE Nifty ended with loss of 130 points at 4,740.

Index Shakers . . .

NTPC tumbled 6.4% at Rs 161. ACC plunged 5.2% to Rs 626. Hindalco [Get Quote] slipped 5% to Rs 182.

Reliance Infrastructure lost 4.9% to Rs 1,170. TCS [Get Quote] was down 4.3% at Rs 985.

BHEL declined 4% to Rs 1,596. Tata Steel [Get Quote] was trading at Rs 868 - down 3.9%.

Reliance Communications [Get Quote] and HDFC Bank [Get Quote] dropped 3.8% each at Rs 555 and Rs 1,306, respectively.

ONGC [Get Quote] lost 3.6% at Rs 833. SBI [Get Quote] and DLF slipped 3.4% each to Rs 1,394 and Rs 568, respectively.

Ambuja Cements and ICICI Bank [Get Quote] dropped around 3% each to Rs 92 and Rs 765, respectively.

Ranbaxy [Get Quote] dipped 2.8% at Rs 514. Wipro [Get Quote] was down 2.5% to Rs 495. Tata Motors [Get Quote] lost 2.4% to Rs 563.

Larsen & Toubro shed 2.2% to Rs 2,916, while Cipla and Reliance dropped around 2% each to Rs 208 and Rs 2,357, respectively.

Hindustan Unilever and HDFC dipped 1.5% each at Rs 234 and Rs 2,531, respectively.

Satyam [Get Quote], Jaiprakash Associates [Get Quote], Grasim [Get Quote] and Infosys [Get Quote] were the other major losers.

. . .And The Movers

Maruti [Get Quote] gained 2.8% to Rs 786. ITC was up 1% to Rs 220.

Mahindra & Mahindra and Bharti Airtel [Get Quote] were up marginally.

Most Active Counters

Essar Oil [Get Quote] led the value chart with a turnover of Rs 183.42 crore followed by Reliance Capital [Get Quote] (Rs 180.98 crore), Reliance (Rs 173.06 crore), GSS America (Rs 142.80 crore) and Reliance Petroleum [Get Quote] (Rs 142.36 crore).

IFCI topped the volume chart with trades of around 1.85 crore shares followed by Ispat Industries [Get Quote] (1.60 crore), Spice Telecom (1.18 crore), Chambal Fertilisers (1.15 crore) and Reliance Natural Resources [Get Quote] (94.69 lakh).