A benchmark index of Indian equities markets closed Friday's trade down 499 points or 1.68 percent, as banking, automobile and consumer durables stocks declined.
The markets plunged after scaling a new high of 29,844.16 points in the morning trade session. It surpassed the previous high of 29,786.32 points touched Jan 28.
The 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) of the S&P Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 29,801.60 points, closed at 29,182.95 points, down 498.82 points or 1.68 percent from the previous day's close at 29,681.77 points.
The Sensex touched a high of 29,844.16 points and a low of 29,070.48 points in the intra-day trade.
"Market was impacted with poor data coming from third quarter bank results and fund requirement for divestment. This will continue to impact the market in the near term," said Vinod Nair, head-fundamental research, Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services.
"But Mid and beta stocks where outperforming the main benchmarks. If this outperformance continues, it will be due to improvement in business confidence."
Heavy selling pressure was observed in banking, automobile, consumer durables, capital goods and metal stocks, while healthy buying took place in realty, information technology (IT) and power sectors.
The S&P BSE bankex was down 737.58 points, followed by automobile index which was lower by 245.19 points, consumer durables index declined by 200.93 point, capital goods index decreased by 122.41 points and metal index lost 85.85 points.
However, realty index was up 38.55 points, IT index was higher by 22.27 points and power index gained 19.33 points.
The wider 50-scrip Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) closed 143.45 points or 1.60 percent down at 8,808.90 points. The Nifty had touched a new record high in the morning trade at 8,996.60 points.
The major Sensex gainers were Tata Power, up 2.90 percent at Rs.90.55; BHEL, up 1.62 percent at Rs.291.80; NTPC, up 1.37 percent at Rs.143.80; Wipro, up 0.79 percent at Rs.606.30; and Sesa Sterlite, up 0.67 percent at Rs.201.75.
The losers were State Bank of India (SBI), down 5.13 percent at Rs.310; ICICI Bank, down 4.95 percent at Rs.361.15; DrReddy's Lab, down 3.91 percent at Rs.3,228; Coal India, down 3.81 percent at Rs.360.85; and HDFC, down 3.35 percent at Rs.1,265.65.
