After opening with a positive gap of 73 points at 10,472, the Sensex soon touched a high of 10,597. However, the index could not hold gains for long has sustained selling at higher levels forced the index into the negative zone.As selling intensified towards the close, the index tumbled all the way to a low of 10,018 - down 579 points from the day's high.The Sensex finally ended with a huge loss of over 3% (327 points) at 10,071. The index has shed 782 points in the last three trading sessions.All sectoral indices ended in the red. The BSE Metal index slumped 5.6% to 8,183, and the Auto index tumbled 4.8% to 4,581. The FMCG and Oil & Gas indices were down 1.5% each at 1,825 and 4,910, respectively.The market breadth was extremely negative - out of 2,483 stocks traded, 2,009 declined, 433 advanced and 41 were unchanged today.INDEX SHAKERS...Maruti tumbled over 7% to Rs 682. Tata Motors plunged over 6% to Rs 740. While Hero Honda dropped 5.4% to Rs 729, Bajaj Auto slipped 4.7% to Rs 2,617.Hindalco shed 6.4% to Rs 167, and Tata Steel dropped 5.5% to Rs 489.Larsen & Toubro slumped 6% to Rs 2,180. Bharti Airtel and Reliance Energy were down over 5% each at Rs 347 and Rs 468, respectively.Satyam slipped 4.8% to Rs 658. TCS shed 4% to Rs 1,712, and Infosys was down 2.7% at Rs 2,829.HLL plunged 4.3% to Rs 224. ITC, Reliance and ONGC declined around 3% each to Rs 160, Rs 925 and Rs 1,076, respectively.OTHER LOSERS & GAINERS...Hindustan Zinc plunged over 15% to Rs 612. Rei Agro, Tata Sponge, Blue Star, Esab India, Aarti Industries, Tantia Constructions, Kesoram, Everest Industries, Suzlon, Hinduja TMT, India Cement, Dabur, Bharat Electricals, Asahi India and Kotak Bank were the other major losers today.Flex Industries plunged over 9% to Rs 69. Cosmo Films, Rane Engines, Aarti Durgs, Kajaria Ceramics, Welspun India, Unitech, Tamilnadu Newsprint, Adani Exports and Balaji Tele were the other major gainers.VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERSReliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 244 crore followed by Tata Steel (Rs 143.17 crore), ACC (Rs 129.47 crore), Infosys (Rs 97.42 crore) and Maruti (Rs 83.27 crore).Dewan Housing led the volume chart with trades of around 72.41 lakh shares followed by SAIL (40 lakh), ITC (28.69 lakh), Tata Steel (28 lakh) and Reliance (26 lakh).
