Continued selling pressure seen across frontline stocks dragged the Sensex deep into the negative terrain.
 
Banking, realty and metal stocks remained under huge pressure.

Amongst the sectoral indices, BSE Bankex and Realty lost more than 5% each, Metal fell 4.87% and IT dropped 3.37%.

Some selling also emerged in the broader markets. BSE Midcap Index was down 0.64% while BSE Smallcap Index moved 0.24 per cent lower.

Today, (Monday, March 30), the 30-share index, BSE Sensex belled the week at 9,902.35 after losing 146.14 points.

At 12:00 noon, Sensex lost 319.81 points at 9,728.68. It also hit an intra-day high of 9,902.35 and an intra-day low of 9,706.22.

In the meantime, the broad based Nifty lost 89.50 points at 3,019.15 after touching an intra-day high of 3,110.20 and an intra-day low of 3,012.10.

In the 30-share index, the major gainers were Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (1.54%) and NTPC (0.66%).

The losers list included Jaiprakash Associates, which lost 7.43%, ICICI Bank down 7.31%, Sterlite Industries (India) declined 6.32%, TCS dropped 6.29%, HDFC lost 6.17% and RCom fell 5.77%.

Sun Pharmaceutical Industries has got final approval from USFDA for its abbreviated new drug application (ANDA) to market generic Topamax, topiramate tablets.
 
Asian markets, which opened before Indian markets, fell after commodities prices broke down and on conjecture a recovery for banking institutions will be delayed.

Nikkei fell 390.89 points, or 4.53%, to trade at 8,236.08, Hang Seng index plunged 535.22 points, or 3.79% to trade at 13,584.28 and Shanghai Composite decreased 0.82 points, or 0.03%, to trade at 2,373.61.