Weak global markets and concerns over a below normal monsoon sent stock prices tumbling down to sharply lower levels on the major Indian bourses and pushed the benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty to a highly negative close today.

The Sensex could spend not more than a few minutes in the positive territory today as the bears staged a telling comeback after staying away from the ring in the previous session. As stocks across the board felt the heat and faltered, the Sensex went tumbling down to 14.684.45 an hour past noon, and despite making a spirited attempt to claw back into the positive territory an hour later, finished in the red with a sharp loss today.

While the BSE benchmark ended the day at 14,809.64 with a loss of 225.62 points or 1.5%, the broader 50-stock Nifty index of the National Stock Exchange settled at 4394.10, down 64.80 points or 1.45% from its previous close. In intra-day trades, the Nifty touched a low of 4353.45.

Mirroring widespread selling, all the sectoral indices finished in the red today. BSE Oil & Gas, the biggest loser, closed lower by 2.68%. The Metal, Auto, Power, PSU, Realty, IT, Teck, HC and Bankex indices drifted down by 1% - 2.35%. BSE FMCG, CD and CG indices closed lower by 0.4% - 0.75% today.

Among Sensex stocks, only HDFC (1.6%), HDFC Bank (0.45%) and Larsen & Toubro (0.25%) finished on a positive note today. From the Nifty fold, Nalco (2.65%), Tata Communications (0.8%), ABB (0.35%) and Idea Cellular (0.3%) managed to sign off with gains.

ACC lost a little over 5%. Reliance Infrastructure, Reliance Communications and Grasim Industries ended lower by 4% - 5%. Tata Steel, Mahindra & Mahindra, Reliance Industries, Hindalco, Jaiprakash Associates, State Bank of India, Hero Honda, Tata Motors and Tata Consultancy Services lost 2% - 4%.

ONGC, NTPC, Bharti Airtel, Wipro, BHEL, Sterlite Industries, Sun Pharmaceuticals , Infosys Technologies and DLF also ended sharply lower today.

Reliance Capital, Suzlon Energy, Unitech, Ambuja Cements, HCL Technologies , Siemens, Power Grid Corporation, Cipla, GAIL India and Cairn India drifted declined by 2% - 4%.

Glenmark Pharmaceuticals ended nearly 15% down on sustained selling following an announcement by the drugmaker and its partner Forest Laboratories Inc that a developmental drug failed to show effectiveness in a mid-stage clinical trial. Another reason for the sell-off at the counter was a report that the company is facing a lawsuit in US for a patent infringement case of an anti malaria product.

Bharat Forge, Essar Oil, Balrampur Chini, Rashtriya Chemicals & Fertilizers, Gujarat NRE Coke, Century Textiles, Godrej Industries, IDFC, Ashok Leyland, India Cements and Bajaj Auto also ended with sharp losses today.

Midcap and smallcap stocks found some support in morning trade, but lost their way thereafter and closed well off their day's highs. The Midcap index ended 1.14% down while the Smallcap barometer closed with a loss of around half a per cent.

The market breadth was weak today. Out of 2713 stocks traded on BSE, 1490 stocks declined and 1134 stocks closed with gains. 89 stocks ended flat.