Benchmark equity indices witnessed heavy losses on Thursday led by the global weakness and profit booking from investors. After witnessing flat start in the morning markets tumbled on the jitters from the Chinese market in the latter part of the day. The sell-off dragged the BSE Sensex below the psychological mark of 17,000. Volatility was very high during the entire session given the F&O expiry for November series contracts. Dalal Street witnessed highest ever turnover in trade of over 1.5 lakh crore as market participants also resorted to unwinding of their long positions, fearing this may be the start of the next correction for the local markets. RIL plunged after going ex-bonus; Tata Steel was another stock that declined most during the trade on reporting weak consolidated numbers for the September quarter. Banking sector stocks were the worst performers for the day.Finally, the BSE Sensex plunged 344.02 points or 2% to settle at 16,854.93, while the S&P CNX Nifty tumbled 102.6 points or 2.01% to end at 5005.55.

The US stock markets were closed on Thursday for Thanksgiving.

The Indian rupee pared all its early gains on Thursday, the domestic currency made a good start despite the weakness in regional stock markets, as the dollar has declined heavily overseas against other major currencies but soon as the local stock markets started receding under the pressure of F&O expiry for November series, the rupee lost all its strength. The rupees closed at 46.44/45, 22 paise lower compared to its Wednesday's close of 46.22.

The FII on Thursday were the net buyers in both equity as well as debt segments. In equity segment the gross buying was of Rs 2255.30 crore against gross sell of Rs 2190.10 crore, while in the debt segment the gross purchase was of Rs 467.80 crore with gross sales of Rs 422.40 crore.

The US markets were closed on Thursday for the Thanks giving so were unable to give any direction to the other stock markets, but the Asian markets have made a very weak start, continuing their previous day's plunge. The domestic markets suffered a severe setback in the last hours and fell most in almost a month, on the one side it was the unwinding pressure of the long positions due to F&O series expiry while on the other the plunge in the global markets due to the shock waves bought by the news that Dubai was going to reschedule its debt was pulling the sentiments down. Today the beginning of the new series is likely to be soft with markets swaying in tandem with their Asian peers.

Support and Resistance: S&P CNX Nifty and BSE Sensex

                                                             Nifty Top volumes

• Suzlon Energy has been reported of scouting to raise $700 million at tenure of three to six years via the ECB route.
• Tata Steel has reported a loss after minority interest & share of associates of Rs 2,707.25 crore on consolidated basis for the quarter ended September 30, 2009.
• Wipro has launched its second facility in China to provide IT and backoffice services to its global clients.
• Bharti Airtel Direct to Home (DTH) service has added nearly 1.5 million customers across India in first seven months of the current financial year.
• ONGC is eyeing 20-25% stake in a giant Iranian gas field through its overseas arm ONGC Videsh.

The company, which is sitting on a cash pile of Rs 400 cror...