The markets tumbled in late trades owing to heavy selling across the board. Early gainers like metal and PSU stocks too ended in red.

The realty, banking and IT stocks turned out to be the major losers on Friday.

Globally world markets were down on Friday ahead of the Federal Reserve chairman commnets on the world's largest economgy -- US.

The Asian markets ended in red, with the Nikkei down almost 1%. The European markets were a tad in red.

However, our markets compounded to fact that some profit taking was overdue after the markets had risen to fresh 30-months high last week.

The Sensex on Friday touched a high of 18,248, but tumbled to a low of 17,944 - down 304 points from the day's high. The Sensex finally settled with a loss of 228 points at 17,998.

The NSE Nifty ended with a loss of 69 points at 5409.

The BSE Realty index tumbled 2.7% to 3380. The Bankex and IT index were down around 2% each at 12,216 and 5408, respectively.

The market breadth too turned negative at close. Out of 3,059 stocks traded on the BSE, 2,071 declined and 883 advanced on Friday.

DLF, Hero Honda [ Images ] and ICICI Bank [ Get Quote ] tumbled around 3% each to Rs 308, Rs 1,785 and Rs 958, respectively.

Tata Power [ Get Quote ], Jaiprakash Associates [ Get Quote ] and Jindal Steel shed around 2.5% each at Rs 1,236, Rs 112 and Rs 689, respectively.

Reliance [ Get Quote ] Infrastructure, SBI [ Get Quote ], TCS [ Get Quote ] and Infosys [ Get Quote ] were down around 2% each.

ONGC [ Get Quote ], however, surged nearly 3% to Rs 1,318, and Tata Steel [ Get Quote ] added 1.7% to Rs 510.

Among major realty losers - Sobha Developers [ Get Quote ] tanked nearly 4% to Rs 339. HDIL, Parsvnath, Unitech, Phoenix Mills [ Get Quote ] and Peninsula Land [ Get Quote ] were the other major losers.

MOST ACTIVE COUNTERS

Piramal Healthcare topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 508.85 crore on the BSE.

It was followed by Prakash Steel (Rs 302.70 cr), Great Offshore [ Get Quote ] (Rs 180.75 cr), Tata Steel (Rs 136.51 cr) and Relaince (Rs 127.47 cr).

FCS Software led the volume chart with trades of around 17.62 million shares followed by Prakash Steel (15.30 mn), Ispat Industries [ Get Quote ] (11.45 mn), Piramal Healthcare (10.20 mn) and Assam Company (7.63 mn).