Despite yesterday's strong pull-back, the Sensex today opened with a negative gap of 134 points at 13,531 owing to weak cues from the global markets. Fresh selling pressure in the markets forced the index drop to a low of 12,935.

Some buying in late trades saw the index recover a bit, but eventually end with a loss of 571 points at 13,094.

The BSE Realty index plunged over 9% to 4,295, and the Metal index shed 8.5% at 12,114.

The market breadth was fairly negative - out of 2,684 stocks traded, 1,875 declined and 750 advanced today.

The Nifty dropped 168 points to settle at 3,926.

Realty & metal stocks bleed...

Sobha Developers [Get Quote] and Unitech over 10% each to Rs 249 and Rs 154, respectively. HDIL tanked 9.5% to Rs 365. Anant Raj, Omaxe, Indiabulls Real Estate [Get Quote], Phoenix Mills [Get Quote], Akruti City, Mahindra Lifespace, Parsvnath and Puravankara shed 7-9% each.

Among the metal stocks - Gujarat NRE Coke [Get Quote] slumped 13.5% to Rs 108. SAIL [Get Quote] crashed 10% to Rs 128. Jindal Steel plunged over 9% to Rs 1,679. JSW Steel [Get Quote], Sterlite, Sesa Goa [Get Quote], Ispat Industries [Get Quote], Welspun Gujarat and Maharashtra Seamless [Get Quote] dropped 5-8% each.

Index shakers...

Tata Steel [Get Quote] slumped 11.3% to Rs 657. DLF plunged 10% to Rs 382.

Reliance Infrastructure tumbled 8.7% to Rs 722. ICICI Bank [Get Quote] shed almost 8% at Rs 574.

Reliance Communications [Get Quote] slipped nearly 7% to Rs 390. ACC shed 6% at Rs 472, and ITC dropped 5.7% to Rs 169.

Tata Motors [Get Quote] and Grasim [Get Quote] declined 5.5% each to Rs 390 and Rs 1,678, respectively.

HDFC [Get Quote], Maruti [Get Quote] and Ambuja Cements slipped 5% each to Rs 1,936, Rs 549 and Rs 72, respectively.

Bharti Airtel [Get Quote] and Hindalco [Get Quote] shed 4.7% each at Rs 709 and Rs 136, respectively.

Jaiprakash Associates [Get Quote], Infosys [Get Quote] and NTPC were down around 4% each to Rs 139, Rs 1,748 and Rs 153, respectively.

HDFC Bank, Reliance, Larsen & Toubro, TCS [Get Quote] and Satyam [Get Quote] were the other major losers.

...and the movers

SBI [Get Quote] gained 2% at Rs 1,102. ONGC [Get Quote] was the only other gainer among the index stocks.

Most active counters

Reliance Capital [Get Quote] topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 432 crore followed by Reliance (Rs 354 crore), Reliance Infrastructure (Rs 291.70 crore), Reliance Petroleum [Get Quote] (Rs 226.35 crore) and Reliance Natural Resources [Get Quote] (Rs 181.75 crore).

Avon Weigh led the volume chart with trades of around 3.60 crore shares followed by Reliance Natural Resources (2.95 crore), IFCI (1.37 crore), Reliance Petroleum (1.35 crore) and Ispat Industries (1.33 crore).