In an extremely volatile trading session on Monday, the index -- which opened with a gain of 45 points at 5,745 -- spurted to a high of 5,764 in early deals, but shaved off its gains to touch an intra-day low of 5,506.

While the sentiment was extremely bearish after the index slipped into the red in late morning deals, the markets witnessed a total selloff towards the closing hours as the selling spree across-the-board dragged the index below the 5,550-mark.

The Sensex, after moving in a range of 258 points during the intra-day trades, wrapped up the session with a loss of 180 points at 5,521.

The Nifty, too, was battered today, as it shed 49 points to close at 1,763.

All the 30 Sensex stocks declined today, as the declining shares clocked a volume of 3.84 crore (38.4 million) amounting to Rs 1,719.15 crore (Rs 17.19 billion).

Reliance, on the back of sustained selling pressure in its counter, dropped 3.65% (Rs 21) to Rs 543. While ITC declined 3.10% (Rs 35) to Rs 1,100, HLL fell 2.29% (Rs 6) to finish at Rs 154.

SBI was battered today, as the banking major dropped 3.83% (Rs 23) to close at Rs 576. While HPCL dipped 2.61% (Rs 13) to Rs 485, BHEL slipped from a high of Rs 607 to finally end with a loss of 1.38% (Rs 8) at Rs 580. MTNL was down 1.94% (Rs 3) at Rs 139.

Infosys, after touching an intra-day high of Rs 5,165, slipped to a low of Rs 4,900, before ending with a loss of 2.65% (Rs 134) at Rs 4,926. While Wipro dropped 3.42% (Rs 50) to Rs 1,420, Satyam lost 3.95% (Rs 12) to Rs 291.

Grasim (down Rs 25 or 2.31% to Rs 1,069), L&T (down 23 or 4% to Rs 552), Gujarat Ambuja (down Rs 19 or 6.11% to Rs 285) and ACC (down Rs 17 or 6.40% to Rs 244) ended with steep losses.

Hero Honda too dropped 5% (Rs 24) to Rs 450. While Tata Motors slumped 4.40% (Rs 22) to Rs 468, Bajaj lost 2.29% (Rs 22) to Rs 850.

Cipla shed 2.11% (Rs 26) to close at Rs 1,195. While Dr. Reddy's was down 1.35% (Rs 14) at Rs 1,019, Ranbaxy closed down a per cent (Rs 8) at Rs 955.

ONGC failed to hold on to its gains, and lost 1.62% (Rs 13) to close at Rs 788.

Hindalco (down Rs 23 or 1.78% to Rs 1,282), Reliance Energy (down Rs 17 or 2.30% to Rs 723), Tisco (down Rs 33 or 7.86% to Rs 388), Tata Power (down Rs 30 or 7.56% to Rs 365) and ICICI Bank (down Rs 11 or 3.65% to Rs 278) were hammered today owing to relentless selling pressure.

While HDFC Bank slipped 2% (Rs 8) to Rs 362, HDFC was down 1.39% (Rs 9) at Rs 614.