The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex plunged over 250 points at the close of the session today due to heavy selling by funds and retail investors amid weak Asian cues.

Emergence of selling pressure in consumer durables, auto, realty and capital goods sector stocks dragged the Sensex down.

At 3.30 p.m., the Sensex was down 256.86 points at 18,427.57 points and the Nifty was down 77.5 points at 5,526.80 points.

Volume toppers during the session were RIL, SBI, ICICI Bank, Tata Steel and L&T. Major Sensex losers were RIL, L&T, HDFC, Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra, BHEL and Tata Steel. ICICI Bank, ITC and ONGC were the major gainers.

Among the sectoral indices, realty was down 4.66%, consumer durables 3.54%,auto 3.54% and capital goods 3.07%. Of the total 3,009 stocks traded, 972 advanced, 1,849 declined and 188 remained unchanged.

In the opening session, the 30-share index recovered by 36.44 points or 0.19 per cent to 18,720.87 points. It had lost almost 467 points in the previous two trading sessions. The broad-based index National Stock Exchange moved up by 10.10 points to 5,614.40 points.

A weak trend in the Asian bourses dampened the sentiment here and triggered widespread selling. Investors were also concerned over rising food inflation and a hike in key interest rates by the Reserve Bank of India.

comment COMMENT NOW