Mumbai, Oct. 27: Stocks went through the shredder again today as a derivatives drubbing knocked key market indices out of shape and left the sensex bleeding 176 points.

The selling avalanche rocked the futures segments of exchanges, which were overrun by jittery sellers rushing to square up contracts by the end of today’s deadline.

As the market hurtled down, it saw the sensex close 2.2 per cent lower at 7798.49, the lowest finish in two months. The 30-share barometer had ended at 7745.00 on August 30.

Such was the selloff on Dalal Street that there were twice as many losers as gainers at the end of a day during which the sensex swung a gut-wrenching 228 points.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs), the driving force of the market, have been selling heavily this month, taking home Rs 453 crore on Wednesday, when the sensex shed only 17 points. Their net sales on the first two days of the week were at Rs 365 crore, taking the outflows this month to Rs 2683 crore. This compares with their net investments of over Rs 4600 crore in September.

A weak trend in European and Southeast Asian markets also hit the sentiment, though stock indices in the immediate neighbourhood ended on a strong footing. The Karachi 100-share index closed 1.02 per cent higher at 8319.29 points; in Sri Lanka, the Colombo index posted gains of 1.03 per cent at its finish of 2,425.52 points.

According to some analysts, a big reason for today’s slump at home were State Bank and Bharti Tele-Ventures, both of which reported robust second-quarter numbers but failed to impress a market that had hoped for more.

Banking stocks bore the brunt of selling, in reaction to State Bank’s lower-than-expected earnings.

Bharti Tele-Ventures also saw its stock hammered 7.4 per cent to Rs 311.95. Even Reliance and SAIL, which managed to better their earnings forecasts, could not stave off the slide.

The volume of business on Dalal Street was Rs 2794.88 crore, much higher than Rs 2392.32 crore on Wednesday. Reliance Industries clocked the highest turnover of Rs 309.26 crore, followed by SBI with Rs 291.23 crore.