The Sensex opened on a flat note at 6,656. After moving with steady losses in the first half, a wave of selling in late noon trades saw the index slump below the 6,550-mark to touch a low of 6,520.The Sensex finally settled with a drop of 1.82% (121 pts) at 6,535. The Nifty, too, reported a sharp loss of 35 points to end lower at 2,062.SBI crashed 4% (Rs 29) to Rs 693. While ICICI Bank slumped 3.28% (Rs 13) to Rs 395, HDFC Bank declined 1.67% (Rs 9) to Rs 551.Reliance dropped 2.70% (Rs 15) to Rs 544. While ONGC was down a per cent (Rs 9) at Rs 894, ITC tumbled 1.74% (Rs 22) to Rs 1,274.Infosys, after a mixed outing, ended down a per cent (Rs 14) at Rs 2,223. While Satyam shed 1.91% (Rs 8) to Rs 398, Wipro lost 1.45% (Rs 10) to Rs 675.Grasim slipped 1.23% (Rs 15) to Rs 1,245. While Gujarat Ambuja lost 2% (Rs 9) to Rs 409, ACC was down a per cent (Rs 3) at Rs 358.Tata Motors dropped 3.74% (Rs 17) to Rs 433. Other auto majors, too, ended at lower levels.Cipla declined 3.77% (Rs 10) to Rs 264. While Ranbaxy was down Rs 4 at Rs 1,069, Dr. Reddy's added 1.27% (Rs 9) to Rs 731.Hindalco (down Rs 46 or 3.35% to Rs 1,331), BHEL (down Rs 15 or 1.85% to Rs 780), HDFC (down Rs 14 or 1.88% to Rs 739), Tata Power (down Rs 17 or 4.51% to Rs 360) and Tisco (down Rs 14 or 3.16% to Rs 417) ended with steep losses.Bharti and HLL, however, ended marginally higher at Rs 212 and Rs 131, respectively.The selling was so widespread that the BSE Bankex and BSE Metal index crashed over 3% each today.Declining shares outnumbered advancing shares nearly 5:1 - out of 2,473 scrips traded on the BSE, 2002 declined, 428 advanced and 43 were unchanged today.Select pharma scrips bucked the selling pressure, and finished with gains.Wockhardt was up a per cent at Rs 374. Cadila and Sun were also up a nearly a per cent each at Rs 509 and Rs 481, respectively.The UB-SWC deal saw hectic activiity in the scrips today. UB Holdings was locked at its 5% upper limit at Rs 182 - a gain of Rs 9. UB gained 6% to Rs 340. McDowell advanced 4% (Rs 9) to Rs 261. SWC, however, declined 3% (Rs 8) to Rs 214.Ispat led the volume chart with trades in over 97 lakh shares followed by IQ Info (65 lakh) and SAIL (51 lakh shares).SBI was the top traded counter, value-wise, with a turnover of Rs 129 crore followed by Reliance (Rs 118 crore) and Tata Steel (Rs 80 crore). McDowell witnessed a huge spurt in turnover to Rs 58 crore with over 22 lakh shares changing hands today.
