It's a disastrous start for stocks on the major Indian bourses this morning with weak global sentiment casting its shadow in no uncertain terms. Stocks cutting across sectors are seen bleeding profusely in early trade and the benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty have plunged sharply under the impact.

The Sensex, which opened nearly 300 points down at 14,127.76 and plunged to 13,874.39, is now down with a whopping loss of 532.17 points or 3.69% at 13,889.65. The Nifty tanked to a low of 4156.85 after opening at 4315.30 and is down with a huge loss of 3.49% or 150.80 points at 4165.05 at present.

As crude oil prices crossed the $140 a barrel mark, the Wall Street crumbled yesterday and Asian markets have followed suit. The bears, who had stayed away at the sidelines over the past couple of sessions, have seized the opportunity and are running berserk at the moment.

Not a single stock from the Sensex is up in the positive territory. Tata Steel, thanks to a good performance in the year ended 31 March 2008, has escaped with a small damage and is down by just around 0.4%. ACC is the other stock to have fared reasonably well. It is down with a loss of around 0.6% at present. Cairn India (up 1.65%) is the lone gainer from the Nifty pack.

Wipro is down with a loss of 6.85%. Tata Motors has lost 6.2%. Ambuja Cements has declined by over 6%. Reliance Infrastructure, Maruti Suzuki, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Larsen & Toubro and Mahindra & Mahindra are down by 4% - 5%.

Reliance Industries, Satyam Computer Services, Jaiprakash Associates, Bharti Airtel, BHEL, DLF, HDFC and ITC have lost more than 3%.

Cipla, Grasim Industries, Hindustan Unilever, Hindalco, Infosys Technologies, NTPC, ONGC, Ranbaxy Laboratories, Reliance Communications, State Bank of India and Tata Consultancy Services are also down with sharp losses.

Tata Communications, Unitech, HCL Technologies, Hero Honda, Tata Power, BPCL, GAIL India, Siemens and ABB are down by 4% - 6%. SAIL, Nalco, Punjab National Bank, Reliance Petroleum, Power Grid, Sun Pharmaceuticals, Idea Cellular, Zee Entertainment, Sterlite Industries, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories and Suzlon Energy have also declined sharply.