The Sensex opened with a negative gap of 274 points at 13,721. The index tried to recover in morning trades but could only manage to touch a high of 13,978.

Unabated selling in banking, realty and technology stocks saw the index slide to a low of 13,543. The Sensex finally ended with a loss of 425 points at 13,570.

The BSE IT index plunged 5% to 3,455. The Realty index shed 4.7% at 3,903, and the Bankex dropped 4.2% to 6,804.

The market breadth was fairly negative - out of 2,652 stocks traded, 1,823 declined, 760 advanced and the remaning were unchanged on Tuesday.

INDEX SHAKERS. . .

Ranbaxy [Get Quote] slumped 11% to Rs 309. DLF tumbled over 6% to Rs 395.

Satyam [Get Quote], TCS [Get Quote] and Wipro [Get Quote] plunged nearly 6% each to Rs 332, Rs 721 and Rs 390, respectively.

HDFC [Get Quote], ICICI Bank [Get Quote] and Jaiprakash Associates [Get Quote] shed 5.5% each at Rs 2,198, Rs 600 and Rs 123, respectively.

Infosys [Get Quote] and Tata Motors [Get Quote] dropped 5% each to Rs 1,543 and Rs 394, respectively.

HDFC Bank and Tata Steel [Get Quote] slipped 4.5% each to Rs 1,238 and Rs 471, respectively.

SBI [Get Quote] declined 4% to Rs 1,503. BHEL shed 3.4% at Rs 1,626.

Grasim [Get Quote] and Maruti [Get Quote] were down almost 2.5% each at Rs 1,891 and Rs 701, respectively.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of nearly Rs 396 crore followed by Reliance Capital [Get Quote] (Rs 278 crore), Sesa Goa [Get Quote] (Rs 239.40 crore), SBI (Rs 136.40 crore) and Reliance Natural Resources [Get Quote] (Rs 135.40 crore).

Sesa Goa led the volume chart with trades of around 1.87 crore shares followed by Reliance Natural Resources (1.68 crore), Apollo Tyres [Get Quote] (74.33 lakh), IFCI (67 lakh) and Cals Refineries (62.67 lakh).