By IANS,
Mumbai : The Indian equity markets ended Wednesday with deep cuts due to heavy selling in realty, banking, capital goods and metal stocks. Weak global markets also weighed heavily on the domestic bourses.
Except FMCG and auto, all the sectoral indices ended the day in the red.
The markets started on a mixed note and tried to hold on to small gains in early trade but started sliding, a trend that accelerated towards the end of the trading session.
The 30-share benchmark index of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), the Sensex, opened at 15,744.21 points and touched a high of 15,789.62 before closing at 15,422.31. It went down by 274.59 points or 1.75 percent compared to its closing figure Tuesday.
The S&P CNX Nifty index of the National Stock Exchange, which opened at 4,652.80 points, closed at 4,582.40. It went down by 70.60 points or 1.52 percent from its previous close.
The BSE Midcap index, which closed at 6,359.79 points, went down by 40.39 points or 0.63 percent.
The BSE Smallcap index, which closed at 7,775.29 points, went down by 6.01 points or 0.08 percent.
The market breadth was negative. On BSE, 1,254 shares advanced, 1,402 declined and 75 maintained status quo.
Top gainers of the day included Ambuja Cements at Rs.90.65 up 4.80 percent, Ranbaxy Labs at Rs.598.20 up 2.88 percent and Grasim at Rs.2,229.10 up 2.38 percent.
Top losers of the day included ICICI Bank at Rs.785.35 down 4.25 percent, HDFC Bank at Rs.1,166.45 down 3.40 percent and Tata Steel at Rs.822.65 down 3.18 percent.