From correspondents in Maharashtra, India, 06:52 PM IST

The Indian equities market ended the last day of the trading session with a huge loss amid negative cues from global markets and the serial blasts in the IT city Bangalore which further dampened investor sentiment Friday. Banking, realty and oil and gas stocks were worst hit.

The market started on a negative note and extended its loss by afternoon and, after the news of the Bangalore blasts filtered in, fell sharply in the last hour of trade.

The 30-share benchmark of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) sensitive index (Sensex), which opened at 14,451.95 points, touched a low of 14,210.63 before closing at 14,274.94 points. It went down by 502.70 points or 3.40 percent at the day's close.

The National Stock Exchange (NSE) S and amp;P Nifty, which opened at 4440.85 points, closed at 4311.85 points. It went down by 121.70 points or 2.24 percent.

The BSE Midcap index, which closed at 5,572.59 points, went up by 8.31 points or 0.15 percent.

BSE Smallcap index, which closed at 6,778.78 points, went down by 17.33 points or 0.25 percent.

The market breadth was negative. On BSE, 1154 shares advanced, 1460 declined and 77 maintained status quo.

The top gainers of the day included Ranbaxy labs at Rs.481.25 -- up by 3.12 percent, ACC at Rs.574.25 -- gain of 2.41 percent and HUL at Rs.232.20 -- a rise of 1.91 percent.

The top losers of the day included ICICI bank at Rs.656.85 -- lost 9.62 percent, HDFC Bank at Rs.1127.15 -- lost 7.17 percent and Reliance Industries at Rs.2147.25 -- lost 6.90 percent.

(Staff Writer, © IANS)