Global Blues: Sensex drops 546 points to 15,230

The Sensex, which opened with a huge negative gap of 288 points at 15,488, dropped to a low of 15,160 in noon deals on weak global cues -- down 616 points from the previous close.

The index finally closed with a huge loss of 542 points (3.43%) at 15,234. The NSE Nifty ended at 4,442, down 178 points.

All the sectoral indices dropped sharply on Friday. The BSE Realty Index plunged over 5% to 7824. The BSE PSU Index dropped over 4% to 6983.

The broad market breadth was extremely bearish -- out of 2,575 scrips traded, 1,954 declined on Friday.

All Fall Down

Tata Steel plunged over 7% (Rs 52) to Rs 652. Reliance Communications slipped nearly 6% to Rs 537. BHEL declined over 5% to Rs 1,660.

Hindustan Unilever dropped over 4% to Rs 196, and Reliance was down nearly 4% at Rs 1,866.

ONGC, SBI, Tata Motors, Wipro and Bajaj also declined sharply on Friday.

ITC, however, moved up over 3% to Rs 172. Ranbaxy and Ambuja Cements finished with marginal gains.

Most Active Counters

Reliance was the most active counter with a turnover of Rs 414 crore (Rs 4.14 billion)?followed by HDFC (Rs 296 crore or Rs 2.96 billion), Reliance Energy (Rs 239 crore or Rs 2.39 billion), DLF (Rs 235 crore or Rs 2.35 billion) and L&T (Rs 172 crore or Rs 1.72 billion).