The Sensex opend almost unchanged at 9,637 - up two points. The index, thereafter, soon slipped into red and was down around 75-odd points before the acting finance minister Pranab Mukherjee started his Interim Budget Speech.

The index extended losses during the course of the Speech, and finally plunged to a low of 9,279 as investors were dis-appointed from the non-eventful Budget.

In today's Interim Budget the UPA government did not announce any major changes in the Budget, nor lowered any taxes and neither the much talked about stimulus package. However, the government did increase spendings on the rural and defence front.

The Sensex finally ended with a loss of 329 points at 9,305.

The BSE Metal index shed 4.8% at 5,031. The Realty, Capital Goods indices and the Bankex dropped around 4.5% each to 1,519, 6,249 and 4,795, respectively.

The market breadth was fairly negative - out of 2,482 stocks traded, 1,598 declined, 776 advanced and the rest were unchanged today.

Index shakers...

Jaiprakash Associates [Get Quote] slumped nearly 8% to Rs 70. Reliance Infrastructure tumbled 6.3% to Rs 533.

ICICI Bank [Get Quote] and Reliance Communications [Get Quote] plunged 5.8% each to Rs 409 and Rs 171, respectively.

Tata Steel [Get Quote], Reliance and Larsen & Toubro shed around 5% each at Rs 184, Rs 1,319 and Rs 666, respectively.

SBI [Get Quote] and Sterlite dropped nearly 5% each to Rs 1,136 and Rs 263, respectively.

BHEL slipped 4.5% to Rs 1,401. Wipro [Get Quote] declined 3.6% to Rs 216.

Ranbaxy [Get Quote] and HDFC Bank [Get Quote] were down 3.3% each at Rs 205 and Rs 915, respectively.

Hindalco [Get Quote], DLF, HDFC, ACC, NTPC, Infosys [Get Quote] and Tata Power [Get Quote] were the other major losers.

Value and volume toppers

Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 240 crore followed by Educomp Solutions [Get Quote] (Rs 207.60 crore), DLF (Rs 145.70 crore), Reliance Infrastructure (Rs 119.50 crore) and Reliance Capital [Get Quote] (Rs 118.20 crore).

Unitech led the volume chart with trades of around 2.40 crore shares followed by Satyam [Get Quote] (2.01 crore), Cals Refineries (1.46 crore), DLF (91.95 lakh) and HDIL (83.77 lakh).