Sensex plunges by 337.99 points

Mumbai, Mar 4 (UNI) The Sensex nosedived by another 337.99 points on the Bombay Stock Exchange today to close to close at 16,339.89 on sustained profit booking interest amid highly volatile trading and weak global cues.

The benchmark Sensex, which pluged heavily in the previous session, however, opened the day with a positive gap of 64.32 points at 16,742.20 after closing at 16,677.88 in the previous session on some initial buyings in select scrips. But it failed to hold the gains and slipped into red on strong downsurge created by major banking stocks including the largest private bank ICICI Bank, which tumbled by over 9 per cent after the report that it had a subprime loss of USD 250 million, brokers said.

Sensex was down 513.31 points to touch a day's low at 16,164.57 soon after its reopening at 1230 hrs, after 45 minute pause due to sun outage. However, it recovered from its lowest end and ultimately settled in negative zone after witnessing alternate bouts of buying and sellings in blue-chips, brokers added.

Meanwhile, the broader CNX S&P Nifty index of National Stock Exchange dropped 88.75 points to close at 4,864.25 from its previous close at 4,953.00 following the same trend.

Banking and realty stocks were the worst hit in today's trade, followed the loss by Power, oil&gas, IT and Auto stocks, which bucked the bearish trend. 19 out of 30 stocks from the Sensex pack were in the red. The market breadth was extremely weak.

The Sensex has lost 1465.37 points or 8.22 percent to the current 16,359.11 from its close of 17824.48 February 28' 2008.

BSE clocked a turnover of Rs 5804 crore today compared to Rs 5,106.59 in the previous session.

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