It was another scary session for the markets led by huge profit booking in infrastructure, commodities and realty stocks. The sell-off was accompanied by huge volumes, which crossed the Rs 1-lakh crore mark. The broader largecap Index Nifty 50 closed just above the 4250 level after seeing an intraday low of 4222.15.

Nitin Raheja, CIO of Rada Advisors Pvt Ltd said, "Unless the Nifty crosses 4,100, I would believe that we are yet in that range." However, he said 4100 could not be ruled out at the end of day. "This has been a flow driven market; we have seen strong FII (Foreign Institutional Investor) flows in the last 1.5 months which is been responsible and what we are seeing in the last couple of days has been the reverse. If it crosses 4,100 then we are going to be slowly covering that entire gap that we had on the 18th May."

Some largecaps saw more than 8% cut in today's trade. Fresh shorts build-up and follow-up unwinding were other reasons for the markets' downfall. ONGC, NTPC, SAIL, Tata Steel, BHEL, L&T, ICICI Bank and Reliance Communication were the negative contributors. However, there was some support seen from SBI, Bharti, Infosys, Hero Honda, Axis Bank, Sun Pharma, Tata Motors, BPCL and PNB.

The 30-share BSE Sensex fell 1.77% or 257.31 points, to settle at 14,265.53, after seeing an intraday low of 14,188.25. The NSE Nifty 50 closed at 4251.40, down 2.4% or 104.75 points. Among the broader indices, the BSE Midcap Index slipped 144.21 points or 2.87%, to 4,876.86 and the Smallcap Index fell 3.7% or 214.10 points, to 5,572.44.

The Nifty futures added about 35 lakh shares in open interest (OI) and saw a turnover of more than Rs 15,000 crore. Nifty Open Interest PCR (put-call ratio) declined further to 0.88; 4300 Call added 13 lakh shares and 4,400 Call added 10 lakh shares while 4,200 Put added 10 lakh shares in Open Interest.

Sectoral indices
Rahul Mohindar of viratechindia.com said, "We are probably going to head down to something like 4100-4120 from here before we can see the next patch of recovery."

Volumes were lot better than previous session; total turnover traded stood at Rs 1,11,911.92 crore as against Rs 1,07,365.32 crore. This included Rs 20,827.07 crore from the NSE cash segment, Rs 83,936.67 crore from the NSE F&O and the balance Rs 7,148.18 crore from the BSE cash segment.

All the sectoral indices ended in the red barring IT. The BSE Realty Index underperformed other indices, slipped 5.80%, to 3,190.13. Metal, Power, Capital Goods and Oil & Gas indices fell 4.88%, 3.83%, 3.73% and 2.16%, respectively. Among others, Auto, Bank, FMCG, TECk and Healthcare indices lost 0.4-0.9%. However, IT Index gained just 0.17%.

In the real estate space, HDIL, Mahindra Life, Unitech and Peninsula Land were down around 9% each. Indiabulls Real, Akruti City, Orbit Corporation, Parsvnath, Ansal Properties, Puravankara Projects, Omaxe and DLF fell 3.3-6%.

Among the metal stocks, JSW Steel, Ispat Industries, Jindal Saw, Tata Steel, Hindalco and Hindustan Zinc lost 6-9%. JSL, Jindal Steel, SAIL and Sterlite Industries were down 2.3-5.7%.

In the power space, Suzlon Energy tanked 10.5%. Torrent Power, Power Grid Corp, NTPC, CESC, Reliance Infrastructure, Areva T&D and Reliance Power plunged 3.7-7.6%. Among the capital goods stocks, Punj Lloyd, ABB, L&T, Siemens and BHEL were down 2.7-7.6%.

Huge selling pressure was seen in the cement space today as well. ACC, Ambuja Cements, Binani Cement, Heidelberg Cement and Prism Cement plummeted 7-9%. Grasim, Birla Corporation, Dalmia Cement, India Cements, JK Lakshmi Cement and UltraTech Cement slipped 5-6%. Shree Cements was down 1.45%.

Oil & gas stocks like ONGC tumbled 4.87%. BPCL, HPCL, Cairn India and IOC lost 2.2-3.5%. Reliance Industries and Reliance Petroleum fell 1.25% each.

In the banking space, ICICI Bank was down 2.58% and HDFC Bank slipped 1.57%. However, SBI, Axis Bank and PNB gained 1-2.3%. In the technology pack, HCL Tech declined 2.88% and Wipro down just 0.24% while Infosys and TCS were up 0.6% and 0.2%, respectively.

Among the telecom stocks, MTNL, Reliance Communication and Idea Cellular tumbled 3-4.8%. Tata Communication lost 0.55%. However, Tata Teleservices went up 3.94% and Bharti Airtel was up 0.36%.

The market breadth was pathetic; about 603 shares advanced while 2198 shares declined on the BSE. Nearly 346 shares remained unchanged.

In the midcap space, Redington, HT Media, BGR Energy, Aban Offshore and GMDC slipped 9-10%. Smallcaps like Zodiac Clothing, Sanghi Industries, Vishal Info, ABG Shipyard and Indian Metals were down 9-10%.

Global cues
At the time of closing of Indian equities, European markets - the FTSE 100 was down just 8.64 points or 0.2% at 4,269.82. The CAC 40 declined 5.33 points or 0.17%, to 3,155.81 and DAX was down 1.14 points at 4,798.84.

Among the US futures, the Dow Jones future was up 2 points at 8,495 while the Nasdasq future fell 3.5 points, to 1,450.

Asian markets ended lower. Jakarta Composite plunged 3.65%. Hang Seng, Nikkei, Straits Times and Kospi lost 1.1-1.7%. Taiwan Weighted fell 0.83%. However, Shanghai Composite gained 1.56%.