By IANS,
Mumbai : The Indian equities markets, which oscillated between positive and negative zones through much of Thursday, went down steeply in the last hour of trade and ended a long way down.
The market started on a firm note tracking strong markets elsewhere in Asia. Trading was volatile throughout before the last hour slump.
The 30-share benchmark uindex of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), the Sensex, opened at 16,666.03 points and touched a low of 16,666.03 before closing at 16,316.26, going down by 209.11 points or 1.27 percent compared to the closing figure Wednesday.
The S&P Nifty index of the National Stock Exchange, which opened at 4,926.30 points, closed at 4,835.30. It went down by 83.05 points or 1.69 percent from its previous close.
The BSE Midcap index, which closed at 6,741.76 points, went down by 11.77 points or 0.17 percent.
The BSE Smallcap index, which closed at 8,181.07 points, went down by 56.02 points or 0.68 percent.
The market breadth was negative. On BSE, 1,115 shares advanced, 1,537 declined and 109 maintained status quo.
The top gainers of the day included Larsen and Toubro at Rs.2,889.10 up 6.64 percent; Reliance Communication at Rs.573.20 up 3.92 percent; and Satyam at Rs.526.25 up 2.30 percent.
The top losers of the day included Tata Motors at Rs.582.55 down 8.22 percent; Ambuja Cements at Rs.97.80 down 6.05 percent; Mahindra and Mahindra at Rs.606.20 down 5.52 percent.