Surrendering early gains completely, the benchmark Sensex Wednesday fell 383 points to end below the 35,000-mark in highly volatile trade, breaking three sessions of gains as investors booked profits amid caution ahead of Reliance Industries' second quarter earnings.
The flagship index swung nearly 880 points both ways on alternate bouts of buying and selling during the session.
Sentiments also hurt by liquidity concerns that dragged down non-banking financial stocks.
Overall sentiment was cautious as investors were on a wait-and-watch mode ahead of financial results from Reliance Industries, to be released later in the day, brokers said.
After a gap up opening at 35,543.38 points, the Sensex advanced to hit a high of 35,605.43 points in early trade on the back of better-than-expected Q2 earnings posted by tech major Infosys on Tuesday.
However, emergence of selling by investors across-the-board, mostly of a profit-booking nature, gave up session's gain to hit a low of 34,727.16 in late afternoon trade, before settling 382.90 points, or 1.09 per cent, down at 34,779.58.
The index had risen nearly 1,161 points in the past three sessions on the back of unabated buying by domestic institutional investors (DIIs) and rebound in global equity markets.
The broader NSE Nifty too dived by 131.70 points, or 1.24 per cent, to close at 10,453.05. Intra-day, it reclaimed the 10,700-mark to scale a high of 10,710.15 and a low of 10,436.45.
In the forex market, the rupee after showing strength in early session to quote at 73.37, was quoting 13 paise down at 73.61 against the dollar (intra-day) too had its shadow on equities.
Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth Rs 1,165.63 crore, while domestic institutional investors bought shares to the tune of Rs 1,059.44 crore on Tuesday, as per provisional data available on the BSE.
Stock exchanges will remain closed tomorrow on account of "Dussehra".
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