The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 121 points at 18,724, and after touching day's high of 18,745, the index soon slipped into red. The index, thereafter, exhibited highly volatile movement wherein it gyrated between zones and tumbled to a low of 18,183 - down 562 points from the day's high.
Aggressive short covering in the last half-hour saw the Sensex rebound and gain nearly 100 points. The index finally ended with a loss of 76 points at 18,526.
The BSE Realty index plunged 5% to 9457, and the Power index tumbled over 2% to 4151. The Bankex moved up 1.8% to 10,406.
The market breadth was extremely negative - out of 2,816 stocks traded, 1,959 declined, 811 advanced and 46 were unchanged today.
INDEX MOVERS...
SBI zoomed 4% to Rs 2,242. Maruti surged 3% to Rs 980.
ACC, ICICI Bank and Bajaj Auto rallied over 2% each to Rs 1,103, Rs 1,127 and Rs 2,473, respectively.
Hindalco, Cipla and Bharti Airtel advanced 1% each to Rs 186, Rs 183 and Rs 907, respectively.
...AND THE SHAKERS
DLF plunged 5.5% to Rs 823.
Reliance Energy and NTPC tumbled 5% each to Rs 1,605 and Rs 228, respectively.
Larsen & Toubro dropped 4% to Rs 3,942, and ONGC shed 3.6% at Rs 1,150.
Ranbaxy and HDFC slipped 1.5% each to Rs 393 and Rs 2,561, respectively.
Infosys and Reliance Communications were down over 1% each at Rs 1,532 and Rs 674, respectively.
VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS
Reliance Petroleum topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 504.20 crore followed by Reliance Natural Resources (Rs 311.55 crore), Reliance (Rs 288.70 crore), Reliance Capital (Rs 283 crore) and Larsen & Toubro (Rs 238.80 crore).
Reliance Petroleum led the volume chart with trades of around 2.46 crore shares followed by Reliance Natural Resources (2.16 crore), Ispat Industries (1.73 crore), Tata Teleservices (1.64 crore) and IFCI (1.23 crore).
