The Sensex, after commencing with a gain of 19 points at 5,870, touched an intra-day high of 5,875 on selective gains in early deals. The markets soon drifted into negative territory as selling emerged in most of the sectors and remained weak through the session.

While the sentiment continued to remain bearish in afternoon trades, the markets plunged deep into the red towards fag-end as unabated selling pressure in old and new ecnonomy stocks saw the index slip below the 5,700 mark to touch a low of 5,680.

The Sensex finally ended with a huge loss of 153 points at 5,698. The Nifty shed 45 points to close at 1,808.

While only three Sensex stocks managed to garner gains, 27 declined today. Advancing shares registered a volume of seven lakh for Rs 50.80 crore, and declining shares accounted for a volume of 2.79 crore amounting to Rs 1,293.12 crore.

Reliance, on the back of relentless selling pressure, crashed 4.25% (Rs 25) to Rs 564. While HLL declined 2.68% (Rs 5) to Rs 175, ITC ended with a marginal loss of Rs 4 at Rs 1,091.

SBI tanked 3% (Rs 18) to Rs 588. While BHEL lost 3.10% (Rs 19) to Rs 596, HPCL dipped 2% (Rs 10) to Rs 456. MTNL was down 1.54% (Rs 2) at Rs 135.

Grasim (down Rs 55 or 4.84% to Rs 1,090), L&T (down Rs 22 or 4.04% to Rs 521), Gujarat Ambuja (down Rs 9 or 3% to Rs 296) and ACC (down Rs 10 or 3.86% to Rs 252) ended with steep losses.

Bajaj slumped 6% (Rs 55) to Rs 864. While Hero Honda dropped 5.71% (Rs 29) to Rs 484, Tata Motors plunged 5.25% (Rs 29) to Rs 524.

ONGC at Rs 719 (down Rs 27 or 3.63%), ICICI Bank at Rs 282 (down Rs 16 or 5.41%), HDFC at Rs 643 (down Rs 8 or 1.30%), Bharti Tele at Rs 149 (down Rs 4 or 2.76%) and Hindalco at Rs 1,327 (down Rs 6) were battered owing to steep selling pressure. HDFC Bank, however, ended in the gainers list at Rs 369 - up Rs 6 or 1.54%.

Zee ended deep into the red with a huge loss of 8.39% (Rs 12) at Rs 129.

Tisco shed 2.25% (Rs 10) to Rs 432. Tata Power declined 2.82% (Rs 11) to Rs 363.

Infosys, after trading with gains for better part of the trading session, slipped into the red towards the close to end with a marginal loss of Rs 5 at Rs 5,081. While Wipro dropped 3.21% (Rs 49) to Rs 1,466, Satyam slipped below the Rs 300 mark to end 3.96% (down Rs 12) lower at Rs 299.

While Dr. Reddy's clocked a per cent gain (Rs 9) to close at Rs 1,210, Cipla at Rs 1,185 (down Rs 14) and Ranbaxy at Rs 980 (down Rs 12 or 1.24%) ended at lower levels.

BSES, however, in a weak market, advanced 6.63% (Rs 44) to Rs 701 on sustained buying support. The stock gained mainly on the back of news about its parent company planning to increase its stake in its power arm to 56.5%.