New Delhi, Mar 17: News of the bail-out of Bear Stearns and the US Fed's cut in its discount rate has spelled doom for the Indian stocks as it fell almost 5 per cent to below 15,000 on Monday.

HDFC (down 9.5%), ICICI Bank (8.97%), Jaiprakash Associates (8.15%), Reliance Industries (6.36%) and Tata Steel (6.34%) were the biggest index losers. The Nifty was down 234 points or 4.93 per cent at 4511.75. The index touched a low of 4509.45 in trade so far.

Market breadth on NSE showed 1159 losers against 64 gainers. On BSE, 254 shares rose and 2285 fell. The BSE Bankex and Realty Index tumbled 7.46 per cent and 6.26 per cent respectively. In the realty pack, HDIL, down 9 per cent, plummeted the most followed by Indiabulls Realty (down 7.6%), DLF (6%), Unitech (5.6%) and Akruti City (6.7%).

ICICI Bank, down nearly 9 per cent, posted the maximum losses among the banking stocks. Centurion Bank of Punjab (6.37%), Axis Bank (7.65%), HDFC Bank (5.78%), Kotak Bank (8 %) were the other losers. Asian stocks sank on Monday to their lowest since August 2007 on worries about global credit markets and a weakening US dollar after JP Morgan Chase agreed to buy Bear Stearns for $2 a share and the Federal Reserve cut the discount rate by a quarter percentage point. The Nikkei 225 lost 4.15 per cent, the Hang Seng shed 5.09 per cent and the Straits Times declined 1.6 per cent.