Mumbai May 26: The Sensex opened with a negative gap of 182 points at 16,468 on global weakness.

Unabated selling in the banking, metal and capital goods stocks saw the index tumble to a low of 16,300 - down 349 points from its previous close.

The Sensex finally ended with a loss of 301 points at 16,348.

The market breadth was negative - out of 2,758 stocks traded, 667 advanced, 2,043 declined and 48 were unchanged today.

The NSE Nifty settled with a loss of 71 points at 4,875.

Jaiprakash Associates tumbled 5.6% to Rs 224, while Ambuja Cements plunged 5.4% to Rs 97.

BHEL and Reliance Communications declined over 5% each to Rs 1,656 and Rs 543, respectively.

ICICI Bank slipped 4.3% to Rs 827. HDFC was trading at Rs 2,573 - down 3.9%.

Maruti shed 3.8% to Rs 760. ITC was down 2.7% to Rs 206.

Grasim dropped 3.5% to Rs 2,209. Hindalco, Larsen & Toubro and Reliance Infrastructure declined over 3.3% each to Rs 186, Rs 2,750 and Rs 1,249, respectively.

Tata Steel dipped 2.4% to Rs 875. SBI and Cipla dropped over 2.2% to Rs 1,538 and Rs 199, respectively.

Tata Motors was down 2.1% to Rs 624. Hindustan Unilever and ACC lost around 2% each to Rs 231 and Rs 655, respectively.

DLF, HDFC Bank and Mahindra & Mahindra were the other major losers.

Infosys surged 3.3% to Rs 1,886. Bharti Airtel gained 3.1% at Rs 863.

TCS advanced 2.7% to Rs 959.

Cairn India led the value chart with a turnover of Rs 180.52 crore followed by Reliance (Rs 148.18 crore), Reliance Capital (Rs 145.46 crore), Bajaj Auto (144.40 crore) and Reliance Power (Rs 142.14 crore).

Ispat Industries topped the volume chart with trades of around 1.70 crore shares followed by IFCI (1.11 crore), Aishwarya Telecom (86 lakh), Spice Telecom (80 lakh) and Reliance Natural Resources (65 lakh).

Rupee ends lower at 42.72/73

The Indian rupee ended slightly cheaper at 42.72/73 against the greenback on Monday on month-end dollar demand by oil companies, amid continued weakness in Asian stocks. At the Interbank Foreign Exchange (forex) market, the local currency fluctuated in a wide range of 42.7950 and 42.53 during the day after resuming weak at 42.7900/7950 a dollar from its last close of 42.71/72 a dollar. Dealers said the rupee attempted a smart rally and touched the day's high of 42.53 in early trade due to heavy dollar selling by foreign banks.

However, it failed to retain gains as oil companies stepped in to make month-end dollar purchases, even as equity markets drifted lower with foreign funds heavily unwinding stocks positions, they added. Global crude oil was trading above 133 dollars a barrel in Asian trade on Monday. Asian stocks were under tremendous pressure and stayed weak for the last few days on fears that high inflation rate and weakness in the US economy would adversely impact the consumer demand, a banker said. The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex lost 301 points to touch the six-week low of 16,348.50 points in its third straight session of fall.

Foreign institutional investors have pulled out nearly 491 million dollars during last week, taking the total outflows in the currency year to 2.99 billion so far. Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank fixed the reference rate for US dollar at Rs 42.56 and that for single European unit at Rs 67.08.