The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 87 points at 17,687. Fresh buying in late morning deals saw the index move up to a high of 17,736 - up 136 points from the previous close.
The index, however, could not hold gains and slipped into the negative zone. The index dropped to a low of 17,457 - down 279 points from the day's high in late noon deals. The Sensex finally ended with a loss of 109 points at 17,491.
The market breadth was fairly positive - out of 2,776 stocks traded, 1,634 advanced, 1,104 declined and 38 were unchanged today.
The NSE Nifty slipped 36 points and settled at 5,192.
INDEX SHAKERS...
Wipro, SBI and HDFC plunged nearly 2.5% each to Rs 490, Rs 1,779 and Rs 2,710, respectively.
DLF slipped over 2% to Rs 705. Mahindra & Mahindra and TCS shed 1.8% each at Rs 678 and Rs 924, respectively.
Ambuja Cements dropped 1.5% to Rs 111. Satyam, Hindalco and Reliance Communications declined 1.3% each to Rs 488, Rs 183 and Rs 554, respectively.
NTPC was down over 1% at Rs 199.
...AND THE MOVERS
Cipla gained nearly 1.5% at Rs 216.
Tata Steel, Grasim and ACC were the other gainers among the index stocks.
MOST ACTIVE COUNTERS
Titagarh Wagons topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 225 crore followed by HDFC (Rs 198.50 crore), Reliance (Rs 197.25 crore), Unitech (Rs 167 crore), Jaiprakash Associates (Rs 154.80 crore).
Tata Teleservices led the volume chart with trades of around 1.86 crore shares followed by Kashyap Technologies (1.47 crore), Ispat Industries (1.40 crore), IFCI (1.23 crore) and Reliance Natural Resources (1.09 crore).
