Markets extend losses

The markets have extended their losses in the past one hour. The bourses had opened in the negative on the back of poor Asian cues. The Sensex is now quoting at the day's low point of 15,603, weaker by 308 points, and the Nifty is at 4629, down 81 points.

ACC is trading weaker by 2% at Rs 709, ITC has shed 2% at Rs 248 and Reliance is lower by 2% at Rs 1,875.

Maruti, Larsen and Toubro, and Hindustan Unilever are the other major losers.

Among the gainers, Hindalco is trading at Rs 123 (stronger by 3%), Reliance Communications is at Rs 173 (higher by 2%) and Bharti is at Rs 311 (up 1%).

The FMCG, IT, auto and oil sectoral indices have been responsible for a major chunk of this morning's fall.

The market breadth has turned weak in the past one hour. Out of 2,332 stocks traded on the BSE, there are 1,329 advancing stocks as against 937 declines.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

HDIL has topped the value charts with a turnover of Rs 89.54 crore, followed by State Bank of India (Rs 71.88 crore), Tata Steel (Rs 69.94 crore), Suzlon (Rs 69.80 crore) and DLF (Rs 63.13 crore).

Suzlon leads the volume charts as well, with trades of around 32.71 million shares, followed by Unitech (17.94 million shares),  Reliance Natural Resources (10.59 million), Ispat (8.07 million) and IFCI (5.38 million).