After opening on a weak note and moving around in a lacklustre way around a couple of hours, the market went into a tailspin past noon on a sudden bout of selling that sent stock prices crashing down sharply. The sell-off happened on the back of a massive fall in the Shanghai market where traders indulged in heavy profit booking in late trade today.

The pressure was so intense that stocks cutting across sectors tumbled. Tata Consultancy Services weathered the storm and held on in the positive territory. From the Nifty index, Punjab National Bank and BPCL were the ones that escaped the fury of the bears. However, thanks to short-covering and bargain hunting at lower levels, several blue chip stocks wriggled out of trouble and the market recovered gradually and wiped off a substantial portion of its losses before the closing bell.

Still, the Sensex ended the session with a sharp loss of 158.48 points or 1.03% at 15,173.46. Earlier, the barometer had plunged to 14,888.41 a few minutes past noon, suffering a fall of nearly 450 points. The Nifty closed with a loss of 50.50 points or 1.11% at 4513.50, way off the day's low of 4420.80.

From the Sensex pack, Tata Consultancy Services (4.2%), Tata Power (2.95%), Mahindra & Mahindra (2.35%) and Hindalco (1.3%) closed with strong gains. Reliance Industries recovered well and finished with a modest gain of 0.85%. Wipro and Maruti Suzuki gained a little over half a per cent.

Realty stock DLF (down 6.55%) was the biggest loser in the Sensex today. Tata Steel fell 5.75% on weak results. Sterlite Industries, Sun Pharmaceuticals, Tata Motors, Grasim Industries, Reliance Infrastructure and Hindustan Unilever ended lower by 3% - 5.5%.

Reliance Communications, Jaiprakash Associates, Larsen & Toubro and Hero Honda lost over 2%. NTPC, State Bank of India, ITC, ACC, BHEL, Bharti Airtel, ICICI Bank and Infosys Technologies also closed weak.

Unitech, Suzlon Energy, SAIL, Axis Bank, ABB, Cipla, GAIL India, Reliance Power, HCL Technologies, Idea Cellular, Reliance Capital and Cairn India went down by 2% - 5.5% today.

Punjab National Bank, Jindal Steel, BPCL and Power Grid Corporation closed on a firm note with sharp gains. Tata Communications gained around half a per cent.

IVRCL Infrastructure lost nearly 7.5% on disappointing results. HDIL too drifted lower on weak results and ended lower by over 7%. India Bulls Financial Services, Century Textiles, Kotak Bank, Nestle, Ispat Industries, Titan Industries and Everest Kanto Cylinder also closed with sharp losses today.

Midcap and smallcap stocks recovered well after a sharp plunge. Still, with not many of them making it to the positive territory, the market breadth was weak at close.

Out of 2724 stocks traded on BSE today, 1089 stocks advanced, 1558 stocks declined and 77 stocks ended flat. Among BSE 'A' Group stocks, 142 stocks posted losses and 63 stocks recorded gains.