After opening 31 points lower at 14,647, the Sensex drifted lower as the day progressed. Financial and realty stocks bore the brunt of the selling today. The index tumbled to a low of 14,202 at the fag end of the day.

The Sensex finally ended with a significant loss of 434 points at 14,244.

The BSE Bankex and the realy index plunged over 5% each to 6,578 (down 358 points) and 4,945 (down 263 points), respectively.

The market breadth was fairly negative with nearly five declining stocks for every two advancing shares - out of 2,713 stocks traded, 1,915 declined and 733 advanced on Thursday.

Index Shakers. . .

SBI [Get Quote] slumped over 7% to Rs 1,342. HDFC Bank [Get Quote] tumbled nearly 6% to Rs 1,166, and ICICI Bank [Get Quote] plunged over 5% to Rs 643. HDFC shed 4.4% at Rs 2,210.

Among non-index financial stocks - Kotak Bank shed 4.5% to Rs 550. Indian Overseas Bank [Get Quote], Punjab National Bank [Get Quote], IDBI Bank, Yes Bank [Get Quote], Axis Bank, IndusInd Bank [Get Quote], Federal Bank [Get Quote], Oriental Bank of Commerce [Get Quote], Bank of India and Allahabad Bank [Get Quote] were down 3-4% each.

NTPC slumped 5.7% to Rs 174. DLF and Reliance Infrastructure plunged 5.5% each to Rs 482 and Rs 955, respectively. Jaiprakash Associates [Get Quote] cracked 4.8% to Rs 163.

Reliance Communications [Get Quote] tumbled 4% to Rs 398. BHEL shed 3.7% at Rs 1,670.

Hindalco [Get Quote], Larsen & Toubro, Grasim [Get Quote] and ACC slipped over 3% each to Rs 129, Rs 2,628, Rs 1,965 and Rs 549, respectively.

Wipro [Get Quote], Hindustan Unilever, TCS [Get Quote], Tata Steel [Get Quote] and ONGC [Get Quote] were the other  major losers today.

. . .And The Lone Mover

Ranbaxy [Get Quote] up 1.5% at Rs 513 was the sole gainer among the index stocks.

Most Active Counters

Reliance Capital [Get Quote] topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 226.50 crore followed by Vishal Info (Rs 201.40 crore), Reliance (Rs 172.60 crore), Reliance Natural Resources [Get Quote] (Rs 146 crore) and SBI (Rs 126 crore).

Reliance Natural Resources led the volume chart with trades of around 1.52 crore shares followed by Sicagen India (1.45 crore), Chambal Fertilisers (1.32 crore), Dish TV (1.03 crore) and Ispat Industries [Get Quote] (78.60 lakh).