After consolidating gains last week, market resumed on a weak note as sentiment turned bearish following sluggish global cues as well as falling rupee valuations. It remained under pressure on consistent selling in frontline stocks.
The key index managed to trim most of its early losses on good buying in tech and heavyweight counters and regained the important 5,300 level.
However, the modest recovery lasted for a brief period as bourses encountered across the board sell-off in afternoon trade and touched fresh intra-day lows before concluding the session with substantial losses.
On the global front, Asian stocks slumped on worries over faltering world economy amid recessionary fears on the back of disappointing US jobs data and lingering eurozone debt crisis. European markets were trading cautiously ahead of Finance Ministers' meeting.
Though the selling was broad-based, FMCG, bank, oil & gas, metal, auto and pharma stocks suffered the most.
The 50-share Nifty swung widely between a high of 5,300.60 and low of 5257.75 before closing at 5,275.15, a loss of 41.80 points, or 0.79 per cent, over the last close.
More From This Section
Reliance Infra, Jindal Steel, JP Associates, Ranbaxy, Tata Power, Hero Moto Corp, Tata Steel, Cairn, Maruti and Ambuja Cement were the top losers from the Nifty bunch. TCS, DLF, Dr Reddy's and Hindalco finished with gains.
The turnover in cash segment declined to Rs 8,430.14 crore against Rs 9,782.83 crore last Friday. In all, 6,123.17 lakh shares changed hands in 47,83,155 trades. Market capitalisation stood at Rs 60,54,120 crore.