It was a day of irony on bourses today - while the stock market while the stock market recorded its second biggest single-day loss of 717 points, the stocks scaling their life-time high outnumbered those dropping to record lows by a wide margin.

There were just five stocks on the Bombay Stock Exchange that dropped to their all-time low share prices, while as many as 89 stocks rose to their record highs.

Besides, the number of stocks rising to their upper circuits limit also outnumbered those hitting the lower circuits.

A total of 238 BSE stocks hit their upper circuit limit on Thursday, while 210 shares touched their respective lower circuits. On Wednesday also, as many as 228 stocks had hit upper circuit and just 132 their lower circuits.

The five companies whose share price dropped to record low levels included Essel Propac, Mindtree Consulting [Get Quote], Fortis Healthcare [Get Quote], Supreme Infrastructure, Sundaram Brakes.

Companies that plunged included Reliance Industries [Get Quote], MRF Ltd [Get Quote], Aditya Birla Nuvo [Get Quote], MMTC Ltd [Get Quote], Neyveli [Get Quote] Lignite, Aban Offshore [Get Quote], Shipping Corp and National Mineral [Get Quote]. There were also India Cement, Adlabs Films [Get Quote], Reliance Natural Resources Ltd [Get Quote], Reliance Communications [Get Quote], Reliance Petroleum [Get Quote], Idea Cellular [Get Quote], Power Finance Corp, DLF Ltd and Purvankara whose shares touched life-time high.

However, most of the companies scaled their peaks in the morning trade when the market was on an upswing and the Sensex had gained by close to 500 points regaining its 19,000 level.

Later in the afternoon trade, the fortunes slipped into the negative territory at the bourses and towards the fag end of the trading session the benchmark index had plummeted by over 900 points.

On Wednesday, when the Sensex had ended over 300 points down after a whopping intraday fall of over 1,700 points, as many as 56 BSE stocks rose to their life-time high levels, against just 37 stocks dropping to their record flows.

Among the stocks hitting their upper circuit also, most belonged to the penny-stock category and not the front-line counters, the information available with the BSE shows.

While in the A-group all stocks except one remained stuck to their upper circuit limits, in contrast, as many as 49 Z-group and 87 T-group stocks rose to their upper circuits, compared to 73 T-group and 26 Z-group stocks that hit their lower circuits.

The stocks belonging to Z and T groups are mostly penny stocks, while blue-chips are in the A-group.

A number of small cap stocks also touched their circuit limits, while there were not many in the mid-cap segment. Among the B1-group stocks, six rose to upper circuit, while nine hit their lower circuits. For B2-group stocks, 70 hit upper and 60 lower circuits.

The index-wise classification of the circuit breaker stocks shows that three BSE-500 stocks hit their upper circuits, while a similar number of stocks from this category hit the lower circuit filter.

Among the BSE 200 stocks, three dropped to the lower circuit and none touched the upper circuit. The overall market breadth was negative with 37 per cent of BSE stocks advancing and 61.3 per cent moving higher on the bourses. Among Sensex companies, seven rose and 23 moved down.