Downward movements continued to drag the markets further, as the bourses touched fresh intra-day lows. The Sensex plunged 523 points from the day's high to touch 19,126 off 241 points, while the Nifty was at 5737 down 87 points.
Losers on the Sensex were led by TCS at Rs 1,150, DLF at Rs 237 and Jaiparakash Associates at Rs 96 all down 3% each.
Hero Honda was the top gainer on the Sensex at Rs 1,875 up more than 2% followed by Hindustan Unilever at Rs 280 up 2% and Bajaj Auto at Rs 1,430 up 1%.
In the broader markets, the Mid-cap index slipped 1% to 7,145, while the Small-cap index slipped marginally to 8,778.
All the sectoral indices were in the red. The IT counter reported the steepest decline of more than 2% at 6,115, while the Realty index shed nearly 2% at 2,365, and the Metal counter also lodged a loss of almost 2% at 16,036.
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(Updated at 1310 hrs)
The markets lodged fresh intra-day losses in the noon session. The Sensex slipped 490 points from the day's high to touch the day's low of 19,159, but recovered marginally, and was quoting at 19,181 down 206 points, while the Nifty shed 63 points at 5,761.
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Major laggards in trade on the BSE benchmark were software goods and services exporter TCS at Rs 1,159 down 3%, contributing 22 points to the total loss on the Sensex, while DLF declined more than 2.5% to Rs 239. IT behemoth Infosys, which declined nearly 10% after announcing less-than-expected results of Rs 1,818 crore for Q4FY11, recovered to an extent, but was still trading down 2% at Rs 2,926. Tata Steel, ITC, Jindal Steel, Cipla, BHEL amd HDFC BAnk all declined around 2% each.
Gainers on the Sensex were led by Hero Honda at Rs 1,896 up 4%, followed by Bajaj Auto at Rs 1,439 up 2% and Hidustan Unilever at Rs 279 up 1%.
The broader markets, which were up 1% each in the morning session, also lost due to the near-1% loss on the Sensex. The Mid-cap index moved down 0.5% to 7,171, and the Small-cap index was flat at 8,805.
Susutained buying in energy stocks saw the Oil & Gas index stay in positive territory, although it was flat at 10,054. Significant gainers in this space were HPCL at Rs 364, ONGC at Rs 288 and Petronet LNG at Rs 134 all up 1% each.
The IT index lodged heavy losses again, as the index fell more than 2% to 6,116. TCS was the major loser on the counter down 3% at Rs 1,158. HCL Technologies at Rs 470 and Infosys at Rs 2,914 were the other laggards, both down nearly 3% each. Tech Mahindra, Financial Technologies and Wipro were all down 1% each.
Realty stocks also took a beating because of the loss on the benchmark, and the index shed almost 2% at 2,369. Top losers in this sector were Sunteck Realty at Rs 334, HDIL at Rs 183 and DLF at Rs 238 all down 3% each.
The market breadth was negative, with 1,560 declines versus 1,209 advances.
Markets in Asia were also scoring negatively, with the Nikkei declining 0.4% to 9,557. The Hang Seng was off mearly 2% at 23,782, while the Straits Times slipped 0.3% to 3,145. THe Seoul Composite at 2,138 and the Taiwan Weighted at 8,714 were flat. The Shanghai Composite was the only major Asian index in the green, although it was subdued at 3,057.
The Western markets, too, were seen trading on a weak note, with France's CAC 40 at 3,943 down 0.8%, Germany's DAX at 7,128 down 0.7% and the UK's FTSE 100 declining 0.6% to 5,963 at 1320 hrs.