The Sensex closed below the 10,000-point mark for the first time in eight days and registered its biggest drop in five weeks due to heavy profit booking. The Bombay Stock Exchange index slipped 143 points to 9,981, a fall of 1.4 per cent.The Sensex, after rising steeply to an intra-day high of 10,184.04, met with heavy selling before nose-diving to 9,970 during the day. The market breadth was negative with losers dominating the day at 1,899 against 624 winners on the BSE. The Nifty, too, declined 40.10 points 2981.5. ITC was among the losers, shedding more than 3 per cent to Rs 161.65, while ICICI Bank eased 1.9 per cent to Rs 586.50.FMCG stocks took most of the beating after reaching record levels in recent sessions. The BSE FMCG Index underperformed than other indices. It closed, down 2.66 per cent at 1879.21 amid losses for Shaw Wallace, McDowell, Tata Tea, HLL, Colgate and Dabur India.FMCG was followed by metals. Nalco, Hindalco, Sesa Goa, JSW Steel, Hindustan Zinc, Welspun Gujarat and Sterlite Industries declined, contributing to the 2.2 per cent drop in the BSE metal index.Among the biggest losers were Bank of India, down 6.1 per cent to Rs 131.05, Hexaware, down 5.3 per cent to 131.80, Grasim Industries, down 4.8 per cent to Rs 1,615.85, and Aventis Pharma, down by 4.8 per cent at Rs 1,808.10.Mid-cap stocks, especially tea stocks which had been rising constantly on demand worries originating in Kenya, lost most of the gains they had made. McLeod Russel dropped 9.8 per cent to Rs 137.15 and Harrison Malayalam by 9.6 per cent to Rs 163.55. Videocon Appliances was another prominent loser, down by 8 per cent to Rs 38.35. Bajaj Auto was the only prominent gainer among the auto stocks, gaining 1.2 per cent to Rs 2,401.30 while competitor Hero Honda dropped 3.53 per cent to Rs 889.60.
