The Sensex opened 92 points lower this morning, following yesterday's 330-pt fall, at 9,213. Significant weakness in realy, metal and banking stocks saw the index widen losses as the day progressed.

The index, slipped below the 9,000-mark, to a low of 8,994 - down 311 points. The Sensex finally ended with a loss of 270 points at 9,035. The NSE Nifty ended at 2771, down 78 points.

The BSE Realty and Capital Goods indices plunged nearly 5% each to 1,446 and 1,591, respectively. The Bankex dropped 4.4% to 4,583.

The market breadth was fairly negative -- out of 2,503 stocks traded, 1,712 declined, 688 advanced and the rest are unchanged.

INDEX SHAKERS...

Tata Steel [Get Quote] slumped 6.7% to Rs 172. ICICI Bank [Get Quote] tumbled 5.7% to Rs 386.

DLF and Mahindra & Mahindra plunged 5% each to Rs 148 and Rs 299, respectively.

Hindalco [Get Quote] shed 4.7% at Rs 42. Reliance Communications [Get Quote] and HDFC [Get Quote] dropped around 4.5% each to Rs 163 and Rs 1,432, respectively.

Reliance, Tata Power [Get Quote] and HDFC Bank slipped nearly 4% each to Rs 1,268, Rs 746 and Rs 880, respectively.

Infosys [Get Quote], Maruti [Get Quote], Tata Motors [Get Quote] and Sterlite declined around 3.5% each to Rs 1,178, Rs 599, Rs 132 and Rs 254, respectively.

SBI [Get Quote], TCS [Get Quote] and Wipro [Get Quote] were down around 3% each at Rs 1,100, Rs 486 and Rs 210, respectively.

MOST ACTIVE COUNTERS

Relaince topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 179.66 crore followed by Educomp Solutions [Get Quote] (Rs 178.52 crore), United Spirits [Get Quote] (Rs 126.47 crore), ICICI Bank (Rs 124.32 crore) and Satyam [Get Quote] (Rs 109.60 crore).

Satyam led the volume chart with trades of around 2.21 crore shares followed by Unitech (1.11 crore), Suzlon [Get Quote] (97 lakh), Hexaware [Get Quote] (83.80 lakh) and Cals Refineries (77.65 lakh).