The Sensex opened with a huge negative gap of 416 points at 14,585 on the back of a sell-off in the global markets triggered by the subprime crisis in the US.

The Sensex, after languishing over 500pts lower for most of the trading sesion, slipped again towards the close to a low of 14,345. The index finally ended with a hefty loss of 643 points at 14,358 - the second biggest loss in absolute terms in history.
 

HEFTY LOSSES...
Date	Close	Prv Cls	Chg	% Chg
18-May-06	11391.43	12217.81	-826.38	-6.76
16-Aug-07	14358.21	15000.91	-642.70	-4.28
02-Apr-06	12455.37	13072.10	-616.73	-4.72
01-Aug-07	14935.77	15550.99	-615.22	-3.96
17-May-04	4505.16	5069.87	-564.71	-11.14
27-Jul-07	15776.31	15234.57	-541.74	-3.43
28-Feb-07	12938.09	13478.83	-540.74	-4.01
05-Mar-07	12415.04	12886.13	-471.09	-3.66
15-May-06	11822.20	12285.11	-462.91	-3.77
08-Jun-06	9295.81	9756.76	-460.95	-4.72

The BSE Metal index slumped 6.5% to 10,300. The Bankex and Realty index plunged 5.5% each to 7421 and 6980, respectively. The Oil & Gas index hsed 4.5% at 7505. The Auto and FMCG indices dropped over 3% each to 4662 and 1855, respectively.

Declining stocks beat advancing shares by a margin of over 2:1 - Out of 2,751 stocks traded, 1,869 declined, 842 advanced and 40 were unchanged today.

All fall down

All the 30 index stocks ended in negative territory today.

Tata Steel [Get Quote] crashed over 10% to Rs 575. Bharti Airtel [Get Quote] slumped nearly 7% to Rs 801.

SBI [Get Quote], Hindalco [Get Quote] and Reliance Communications [Get Quote] plunged over 5.5% each to Rs 1,522, Rs 145 and Rs 495, respectively.

ICICI Bank [Get Quote], Reliance and BHEL tumbled 5% each to Rs 832, Rs 1,739 and Rs 1,603, respectively.

Reliance Energy [Get Quote] and HDFC Bank [Get Quote] dropped around 4.8% each to Rs 718 and Rs 1,094, respectively.

Larsen & Toubro, ONGC [Get Quote], ITC, Tata Motors [Get Quote] and Cipla slipped over 4% each to Rs 2,319, Rs 819, Rs 158, Rs 663 and Rs 183, respectively.

Maruti [Get Quote] and TCS [Get Quote] shed 3.7% each to Rs 791 and Rs 1,088, respectively. Ranbaxy [Get Quote] was down 3.4% at Rs 361.

Bajaj Auto [Get Quote], Grasim [Get Quote], HDFC, Mahindra & Mahindra and NTPC declined around 3% each to Rs 2,310, Rs 2,793, Rs 1,885, Rs 658 and Rs 168, respectively.

Value and volume toppers
Debutant IVR Prime led the value chart with a turnover of Rs 329 crore followed by Reliance (Rs 202 crore), Tata Steel (Rs 154 crore), DLF (Rs 150.30 crore) and Reliance Capital [Get Quote] (Rs 116.70 crore).

Nagarjuna Fertilisers topped the volume chart with trades of around 3.10 crore shares followed by IKF Technologies [Get Quote] (1.44 crore), IFCI (1.43 crore), Bellary Steel (1.28 crore) and Reliance Natural [Get Quote] (Rs 1.28 crore).