Indian markets fall as investors booked profit after a strong gain which pushed the Sensex below 17K and Nifty ends near 5K. Realty, telecom and metal stocks were the worst hit in today's session. The Sensex ended at 16,866 down 268 points. Nifty finished at 5,003 down 80 points after hitting a day's low of 4,991. Among the broader indices, the BSE Midcap Index fell 1.7% and Smallcap Index down 2.1%. All the sectoral indices were in the red barring FMCG. The market breadth was extremely discouraging. The Oct Nifty future ended with 9 points premium.

The BSE realty index shed 3.5 %. Orbit Corp, Parsvnath Developers and Unitech shed over 4.8 % each. DLF ended down 3.8%, Omaxe down 3.5% and Ansal Infra down 4%.

The BSE metal index dropped 2.5 %. Hindalco fell 6.7 % and Jindal Saw shed 5.7 %. Tata Steel down 2.7%, SAIL down 4% and Sterlite down 3.7%.

The banking index fell 2 %. SBI and Axis Bank down 3.5% -4%. ICCI Bank down 1.5% and Kotak Bank were down 3.7%.

Telecom stocks also fell sharply in today's trade. The telecom ministry today said that 3G auction would be delayed on request from foreign telecom companies and FIIs. Bharti Airtel plunged 8 % to Rs 400. RCom lost 5.9 % and Idea Cellular was down 4.5 %.

FMCG stocks, however, gained today. The BSE FMCG index ended 1.4 % higher. ITC up 2.5% and HindLever were up 0.6%.

In the Sensex pack, Bharti Airtel was the biggest loser. Grasim also fell 7.1 % to Rs 2,509. Grasim, on Saturday said it will transfer its cement business to its unlisted unit Samruddhi Cement. This will eventually be merged into Ultra Tech Cement. Hindalco was down 6.7 % to Rs 118.