MARKET BUZZ...

At 9:56 am, Sensex was down 253 points at 17512 and Nifty was down 83 points at 5118. Major losers in the opening trade were ACC, Reliance Petroleum, Rel Comm, Satyam, ITC, Unitech, Infosys and Grasim.

Asian markets were trading weak. Hong Kong's Hang Seng plunged 1.98% or 475.15 points at 23,546.53. Japan's Nikkei dropped 1.49% or 202.52 points at 13,423.93. Taiwan's Taiwan Weighted was down 0.25% or 19.96 points at 7,845.32. South Korea's Seoul Composite fell 0.95% or 16.07 points at 1,681.38. Singapore's Straits Times dropped 0.22% or 6.79 points at 3,038.80.

US markets: The Dow plunged 175.26 points, or 1.40%, to 12,376.98. The Standard & Poor's 500 index slipped 18.35 points, or 1.34%, to 1,348.86, and the Nasdaq composite index dropped 41.39 points, or 1.74%, to 2,332.54.

At 10.45 hrs IST, the Sensex is down 105.41 points or 0.59% at 17661.22, and the Nifty down 15.40 points or 0.30% at 5186.60. About 1438 shares have advanced, 1493 shares declined, and 88 shares are unchanged.

Top gainers on the Sensex are Bajaj Auto at Rs 2,143.90 up 3.30%, ONGC at Rs 1,038 up 1.20% and Hindalco at Rs 165.20 up 0.89%.
Top losers on the Sensex are DLF at Rs 844.25 down 2.38%, Larsen & Toubro at Rs 3,424.95 down 2.34% and Infosys at Rs 1,517 down 1.96%
Top gainers on the Nifty are Bajaj Auto at Rs 2,117 up 1.91%, NALCO at Rs 357 up 1.85% and BPCL at Rs 473.80 up 1.72%.
Top losers on the Nifty are Unitech at Rs 374.40 down 4.29%, Suzlon Energy at Rs 329 down 2.78% and Infosys at Rs 1,511 down 2.31%.
Essar Oil, RNRL, Rel Power, Jaiprakash Associate are some of the most active counters today.