Sensex down 190pts; breadth fairly -ve

The Sensex is now down 187 points at 8,705. Earlier in the day, the index opened with a negative gap of 129 points at 8,763, and soon touched a low of 8,644 on the back of weak global cues.

ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Tata Steel have slumped 3.7% each to Rs 316, Rs 852 and Rs 166, respectively.

ONGC has plunged 3.5% to Rs 667. Reliance Infrastructure, Hindustan Unilever and TCS have dropped nearly 3% each to Rs 476, Rs 247 and Rs 467, respectively.

Bharti Airtel and HDFC have shed 2.7% each at Rs 620 and Rs 1,236, respectively.

Reliance Communications, ACC and Infosys have slipped around 2.5% each to Rs 151, Rs 527 and Rs 1,202, respectively.

Wipro, Grasim, Sun Pharma and Tata Power are down around 2% each.

Mahindra & Mahindra has surged 4.3% to Rs 323. Tata Motors has rallied 2.7% to Rs 154, and Maruti has gained 1.6% at Rs 689.

The market breadth is fairly negative - out of 2,097 stocks traded so far, 1,245 have declined, 752 have advanced and the rest are unchanged.