Sensex drops 135pts

The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 14 points at 7,765, and touched a high of 7,771 in morning deals. Selling commenced soon after, and the index crashed to a low of 7,601 - a drop of 170 points from the intra-day high. The Sensex finally closed with a loss of 135 points (1.7%) at 7,616.

All the sectoral indices also finished with losses today. The BSE SmallCap index crashed 3% (182 points) to 5,508. The BSE Consumer Durables index was also down over 3% at 2,356. The BSE Metal, Healthcare, Bankex and MidCap indices lost over 2% each.

The market mood was extremely bearish - out of 2,636 scrips traded, 2,034 declined, 571 advanced and 31 were unchanged today.

ONGC dropped over 2% (Rs 23) to Rs 976. Reliance declined 2% (Rs 14) to Rs 685. SBI was down Rs 11 at Rs 779. ITC, however, was firm right throught the session, and closed with a gain of Rs 3 at Rs 1,691.

Infosys declined 1.4% (Rs 33) to Rs 2,286. Satyam was down 2.7% (Rs 14) at Rs 500, and Wipro dropped Rs 7 to Rs 358.

Ranbaxy tanked over 5% (Rs 28) to Rs 514. Bajaj slipped 4% (Rs 55) to Rs 1,353.

Reliance was the most active counter with a turnover of Rs 185 crore followed by Reliance Capital (Rs 112 crore), Patel Engineering (Rs 103 crore), Satyam (Rs 58 crore) and SBI (Rs 53 crore).