Mirroring negative cues from the overseas markets, the Sensex opened with a negative gap of 183 points at 14,718. The index tried to recover but could only manage to touch a high of 14,866.

A fresh round of selling, mainly in metal stocks, in the second half of day saw the index slide to a low of 14,610. The Sensex finally ended with a significant loss of 238 points at 14,663.

The market breadth was fairly negative - out of 2,730 stocks traded, 1,722 declined, 931 advanced and the rest were unchanged.

METAL'S MELTDOWN. . .

The BSE Metal index slumped 5.5% (647 points) to 11,154.

Sterlite led the fall folowing the company's restrcuturing plan yesterday, The stock plummeted nearly 12% to Rs 508. Tata Steel [Get Quote] plunged over 5% to Rs 535.

Jindal Steel, Gujarat NRE Coke [Get Quote], JSW Steel [Get Quote], SAIL [Get Quote], Hindustan Zinc [Get Quote], NMDC and Sesa Goa [Get Quote] shed 4-8% each. 

INDEX SHAKERS. . .

Tata Power [Get Quote] and Reliance Infrastructure dropped nearly 3.5% each to Rs 1,049 and Rs 1,035, respectively.

Bharti Airtel [Get Quote] tumbled 3% to Rs 812. Reliance shed 2.8% at Rs 2,084.

HDFC [Get Quote] slipped 2.5% to Rs 2,320. Jaiprakash Associates [Get Quote] and ONGC [Get Quote] declined 2.3% each to Rs 168 and Rs 1,077, respectively.

BHEL and Maruti [Get Quote] dropped 2% each to Rs 1,711 and Rs 695, respectively.

TCS [Get Quote] and ICICI Bank [Get Quote] declined 1.7% each to Rs 851 and Rs 701, respectively.

. . .AND THE MOVERS

Grasim [Get Quote], ACC and Infosys [Get Quote] were the notable gainers among the index stocks.

MOST ACTIVE COUNTERS

Austral Coke topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 275.65 crore followed by Sterlite (Rs 212.85 crore), Reliance (Rs 204.30 crore), Reliance Capital [Get Quote] (Rs 184.30 crore) and ICICI Bank (Rs 159.60 crore).

IFCI led the volume chart with trades of 2.12 crore shares followed by Reliance Natural Resources [Get Quote] (93.55 lakh), Tata Teleservices [Get Quote] (72.60 lakh), Reliance Power (46.75 lakh) and Sterlite (40.65 lakh).