Market holds the grip, Sensex plunges over 500 points

MUMBAI: Rising trend short lived as the Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark, Sensex, plunged by 512 points at mid-session on aggressive selling by funds at the existing higher levels.
   
The 30-share index, Sensex, which opened with a significant gain of over 504 points to reclaim 18,000 points level, fell back by 512.14 points at 17,081.93 points at 1330 hours.

In a similar fashion, the second wide-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty fell by 207.60 points at 4995.80 as most of the heavy-weight stocks yielded ground.