Depreciating Indian rupee, which fell by 30 paise against the US dollar at 48.33, also put pressure on the stock prices. The benchmark Sensex plunged by over 151 points in early trade on Tuesday on heavy selling by funds in heavyweight stocks, taking cues from bearish global markets. Depreciating Indian rupee, which fell by 30 paise against the US dollar at 48.33, also put pressure on the stock prices. The 30-share barometer, which had lost 171.58 points on Monday, moved further down by 151.15 to 9,777.20 points in the first five minutes of trading of stocks of metals, auto, and oil and gas sectors, registering losses up to 1.93 per cent. The wide-based Nifty of the National Stock Exchange fell by 41.75 points to 2,997.55. Marketmen attributed fall in stock prices mostly to overnight heavy losses in the US markets, with the Dow Jones index plunging by 0.69 per cent and weak opening on the Asian bourses with Hong Kong's Hang Seng index falling by 2.84 per cent in early trade. They said ahead of tomorrow's December contract expiry in the derivatives segment also had negative impact on the trading sentiments, as participants were seen squaring-up their long pending positions. Major losers which dragged the Sensex down were Reliance Industries, ONGC, Reliance Infra, Larsen and Toubro, Tata Steel, ICICI Bank, State Bank of India, Infosys Technologies, Tata Consultancy Services and Satyam Computer Services Ltd.

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