It was another profit booking day for the Indian equities as huge sell-off was seen in the capital goods, financials and technology stocks. Negative global cues also weighed on our markets. Huge unwinding of positions was seen in today's trade. The broader indices also slipped from day's high on the back of profit booking.

Among the frontliners, L&T, SBI, ICICI Bank, BHEL, SAIL, HDFC, Wipro, TCS, Maruti and DLF plunged 3-9%. Reliance Industries and Infosys Technologies fell over 1.7% each. The sell-off in these stocks pushed the Nifty below the 4200 level during the day and forced the Sensex to close below the 14,000 mark. But the Nifty did not see much pressure compared to the Sensex, as ONGC has more weightage, which shot up 8.41% post the chairman's comments.

News reports yesterday said the Oil Ministry is now seriously considering a free pricing regime for oil instead of the existing subsidy regime. RS Sharma, chairman of Oil and Gas Corporation (ONGC), in an interview to CNBC-TV18, said that price deregulation may now come through after the UPA, sans Left, came to power. ''There are very positive signals. Already we find that discussions have begun in the right earnest," he said.

Shares of oil marketing companies also bucked the trend, HPCL and IOC surged over 14.5%. BPCL gained 10.22%.

The 30-share BSE Sensex touched an intraday low of 13,704.43, before closing at 13,736.54, down 2.31% or 324.12 points and the 50-share NSE Nifty shed 59.40 points or 1.39%, to settle at 4,210.90, after hitting day's low of 4199.20.

The broader indices slipped from day's high, as they seen some profit booking at higher levels, after sharp run-up in the last three days. The BSE Midcap Index closed flat at 4,673.87, after slipping 3.2% from day's high of 4,828.73 while the Smallcap Index rose 2.58% or 134.35 points, to 5,342.53, after dropping 3.6% from day's high of 5,540.76.

Sectoral indices
Big loser in today's trade was Capital Goods Index, which fell 5.41% or 616.94 points, to 10,794.96. L&T plunged 8.59%. ABB, Praj Industries, Siemens, Punj Lloyd and BHEL were down 3.7-6.7%.

Banking was other space that saw huge sell-off; the BSE Bankex lost 2.91% or 230.30 points, to 7,689.23. ICICI Bank tumbled 5.15% and SBI was down 3.70%. PNB and HDFC Bank were down 0.5-1.3%. HDFC slipped 4.86%.

Selling was also seen in auto stocks; Maruti Suzuki tanked 6.93%. Ashok Leyland, M&M, Hero Honda, Bharat Forge and Tata Motors fell 1.8-3.8%. Respective Index declined 2.07% or 93.49 points, to 4,423.14.

Technology stocks like Wipro and TCS were down 4.2-4.9%. Infosys and HCL Tech fell 2% each, which pushed the respective Index down by 1.88% or 53.64 points, to 2,800.32.

The BSE FMCG Index fell 1.86% or 39.34 points, to 2,072.76, as United Breweries, United Spirits, ITC, Marico, Dabur India, Nestle and HUL declined 1-6%.

Meltdown was seen in metals as well; Hindalco, SAIL, Sterlite, JSW Steel and Tata Steel were down 1.5-5%. The BSE Metal Index lost 148.94 points or 1.5%, to 9,758.52.

Profit booking seen in realty, power and telecom stocks as well. The BSE Realty Index declined 1.31% or 43.98 points, to 3,317.45, as DLF and Unitech were fell 3.6% and 2%, respectively.

The BSE Power Index was down 1.19% or 32.75 points, to 2,708.87, as CESC, GVK Power, Reliance Power, Suzlon Energy, Tata Power and Torrent Power lost 1.4-6.4%. However, GMR Infra was up 7%. NTPC and Reliance Infrastructure declined 1.4-1.9%.

In the telecom pack, Idea Cellular, Tata Communication and Bharti Airtel were down 1-5% while Reliance Communication gained 4.52%.

There was a mixed trend in pharma space, though respective index slipped 0.36% or 11.87 points, to 3,318.73. Cipla, GSK Pharma and Sun Pharma fell 3-5.4% while Wockhardt, Biocon, Ranbaxy Labs, Glenmark and Dr Reddys Labs gained 1-11%.

However, the BSE Oil & Gas Index gained 79.15 points or 0.82% at 9,686.69, as ONGC, HPCL, BPCL and IOC surged higher while Reliance Industries was down 1.59%.

Market breadth was strong; about 2158 shares advanced while 665 shares declined on the BSE. Nearly 299 shares remained unchanged.

In the smallcap space, Hinduja Venture, Astra Microwave, PNB Gilts, Shriram EPC and ABG Infralogistics fell 18-19.6%.

Volumes remained above the Rs 1 lakh crore mark; total traded turnover stood at Rs 1,03,994.65 crore. This included Rs 24,317.78 crore from NSE cash segment, Rs 71,702.09 crore from NSE F&O and the balance Rs 7,974.78 crore from BSE cash segment.

Global cues
At the time of closing of Indian equities, European markets were trading trading sharply lower. The FTSE was down 95 points, to 4,373. The CAC fell 47 points, to 3,255 and the DAX declined 76 points, to 4,962.

Among the US futures, the Dow Jones futures lost 38 points, to 8,357 and the Nasdaq Futures declined 5.75 points, to 1,386.75.

Asian markets also ended in negative terrain. Shanghai and Hang Seng slipped 1.5% each. Straits Times was down 2.57%. Nikkei and Kospi fell 0.9-1%. However, Taiwan Weighted gained just 0.23%.