The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 182 points at 10,763, and soon touched a high of 10,787. The index, however, could not go further up as weakness crept into metal and realty stocks.

Selling intensified in the second half of the trading day with forced the index break the 10,000-mark in late trades. The index tumbled to a low of 9,911 - down 876 points from the day's high - a level last seen on July 24, 2006.

The Sensex finally ended with a loss of 606 points at 9,975. In the process, the index has shed a whopping 53% (11,232 points) from its all-time high of 21,207 touched on January 10, 2008.

The BSE Realty index plummeted over 10% to 2,525. The Power index tumbled 8% to 1,712. The Metal and TECk indices were down 6% each at 5,802 and 2,068, respectively.

The market breadth was fairly negative - out of 2,652 stocks traded, 1,877 declined, 719 advanced and the rest were unchanged.

Major index shakers...

Reliance Infrastructure slumped 12% to Rs 491. Jaiprakash Associates [Get Quote] plunged 10.7% to Rs 67, and DLF tumbled 10.3% to Rs 291.

NTPC and Reliance Communications [Get Quote] tanked 9.7% each to Rs 150 and Rs 234, respectively.

BHEL and Sterlite shed 9% each at Rs 1,195 and Rs 272, respectively. SBI [Get Quote] dropped 8.5% to Rs 1,414.

TCS [Get Quote], Tata Steel [Get Quote] and Hindalco [Get Quote] slipped around 8% each to Rs 454, Rs 248 and Rs 64, respectively.

...other index shakers

Bharti Airel and Wipro [Get Quote] plunged around 7.5% each to Rs 677 and Rs 258, respectively.

Reliance, Tata Power [Get Quote] and ACC shed 6.5% each at Rs 1,305, Rs 748 and Rs 489, respectively.

HDFC Bank [Get Quote], Grasim [Get Quote], ICICI Bank [Get Quote] and Maruti [Get Quote] slipped over 5.5% each to Rs 1,024, Rs 1,293, Rs 392 and Rs 640, respectively.

Infosys [Get Quote] dropped 5% to Rs 1,203.

The remaning index stocks were also down with losses in excess of 1% each.

Most active counters

Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 333.60 crore followed by ICICI Bank (Rs 236 crore), Reliance Capital [Get Quote] (Rs 225.30 crore), SBI (Rs 159.35 crore) and Axis Bank (Rs 145.80 crore).

Jaiprakash Associates led the volume chart with trades of around 92.35 lakh shares followed by HDIL (91.50 lakh), Reliance Natural Resources [Get Quote] (68 lakh), Chambal Fertilisers (64.30 lakh) and IFCI (63.70 lakh).