After opening with a negative gap of nine points at 5,748, the index soon slipped below the 5,700-mark as selling in almost all the sectors saw the markets displayed a bearish trend through the session.

While the weak trends continued in the afternoon trades, the Sensex, on the back of relentless selling pressure across-the-board in mid-noon trades, slipped deep into the red to touch an intra-day low of 5,646.

The Sensex, finally wrapped up the session with a huge loss of 88 points at 5,669. The Nifty, which touched a low of 1,797 during the intra-day trades, ended 29 points lower at 1,804.

While only seven Sensex stocks advanced, 23 declined today. Advancing shares clocked a volume of 41 lakh for Rs 102.50 crore, and declining shares accounted for a volume of 1.88 crore amounting to Rs 855.64 crore.

Heavyweight, cement, tech and PSU pivotals were hammered today.

Reliance lost 1.55% (Rs 8) to Rs 532. While ITC dipped 1.95% (Rs 20) to Rs 1,031, HLL closed down a rupee at Rs 145.

Grasim lost 2.41% (Rs 30) to Rs 1,202. While L&T declined 2.27% (Rs 14) to Rs 582, ACC was down 1.81% (Rs 5) at Rs 284. Gujarat Ambuja dipped 1.74% (Rs 6) to Rs 339.

Infosys shed 1.45% (Rs 77) to Rs 5,223. While Wipro slumped 2.77% (Rs 44) to Rs 1,549, Satyam dipped 2.61% (Rs 9) to Rs 320.

SBI shed 1.71% (Rs 11) to Rs 644. HPCL ended off-lows with a marginal loss of Rs 4 at Rs 468. BHEL, however, ended up a per cent (Rs 4) at Rs 583.

Hindalco scaled down 3.92% (Rs 45) to Rs 1,100. Bharti slipped sharply to end with a loss of 4.10% (Rs 7) at Rs 167. Tisco dropped 5.58% (Rs 20) to Rs 346.

ONGC (down Rs 13 or 1.52% to Rs 849), Reliance Energy (down Rs 9 or 1.26% to Rs 726) and HDFC Bank (down Rs 9 or 2.23% to Rs 374) also had a weak outing today.

HDFC, on its 23% rise in net profit at Rs 851.78 crore for the year ended FY-04 as compared to Rs 690.29 crore for the year FY-03, ended with a marginal gain of Rs 2 at Rs 644 on BSE.

While pharma stocks, too, lost ground, tech majors largely finished with gains.

Cipla dropped 1.67% (Rs 23) to Rs 1,330. Ranbaxy also ended lower with a loss of 1.94% (Rs 20) at Rs 1,028. Dr. Reddy's, however, gained 2.76% (Rs 24) to Rs 911 on the news of its acquistion of a US-based company.

Bajaj, however, closed up a rupee at Rs 936, after remaining lacklustre for better part of the trading session. Hero Honda also ended marginally higher at Rs 492. Tata Motors, however, slipped 1.61% (Rs 8) to Rs 477.