Stocks took a bad knock at the opening on Monday as traders were aggressively selling tracking declines in stocks overseas and as oil remained at record highs and domestic inflation stayed at a 3.5 year high. Real estate and power shares were the worst affected, down 4-5 per cent in early trade.

At 10:05 am, the Bombay Stock Exchanges Sensex was down 380 points or 2.44 per cent at 15,192.74.

Among Sensex losers, Jaiprakash Associates, down 5 per cent, took the sharpest knock. BHEL (down 4.82%), DLF (4.8%), Reliance Infrastructure (4.6%), HDFC Bank (4.24%), Tata Motors (4.08%) and State Bank of India (4.05%) were also hammered.

There were no gainers in the 30-share index.

Market breadth on BSE showed 736 declines against 67 advances.

The National Stock Exchanges Nifty was down 117 points or 2.52 per cent at 4511.30

Asian stocks were battered badly early Monday tracking losses on Wall Street on the back of negative economic data. The Nikkei 225 was down 1.7 per cent and the Straits Times slipped 2.14 per cent.

US stock ended with stiff losses on Friday as data showed unemployment rate in May rose to 5.5 per cent and as crude oil rose almost to $140/barrel. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 3.13 per cent, the Standards & Poors 500 Index dropped 3.09 per cent and the Nasdaq Composite Index lost 2.96 per cent.

Crude oil jumped by $11 on Friday hitting a record high of $139.12 a barrel on fresh tensions in the Middle East. Oil prices edged lower to $137.7 on Monday.

India's wholesale price index rose 8.24 per cent in the 12 months to May 24, above the previous week's 8.1 per cent, data showed Friday.