The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 14 points at 7,989, and touched a high of 7,995 in early deals. Selling commenced soon after, and the index plunged to a low of 7,767 in late noon deals - an intra-day swing of 228 points. The Sensex finally closed with a loss of 2.2% (176 points) at 7,798.All the sectoral indices finished with steep losses today. The BSE Bankex plunged over 4% (196 points) to 4,356. The BSE Teck Index was down 2.9% (61 points) at 2,041. The BSE Metal, PSU, Auto, Oil&Gas and Consumer Durables indices also dropped today.Declines were ahead of advances over 2:1 - out of 2,452 scrips traded, 1,641 declined, 764 advanced and 47 were unchanged today. SBI plunged over 6% (Rs 54) to Rs 831. Reliance declined 1.7% (Rs 13) to Rs 751. HLL was down Rs 3 at Rs 162. ONGC was up Rs 4 at Rs 936.Infosys slipped 1.8% (Rs 44) to Rs 2,468. Satyam declined 3% (Rs 18) to Rs 590. TCS dropped Rs 15 to Rs 1,406, and Wipro was down Rs 4 at Rs 373.Bharti declined over 7% (Rs 25) to Rs 312. ICICI Bank dropped nearly 6% (Rs 30) to Rs 481. BHEL lost over 4% (Rs 51) to Rs 1,108.Tata Motors declined 2.8% (Rs 14) to Rs 485. While Bajaj was down Rs 32 at Rs 1,733, Maruti declined Rs 18 to Rs 532.Grasim was down 4% (Rs 47) at Rs 1,106. ACC and Gujarat Ambuja also declined. Cipla dropped over 4% (Rs 16) to Rs 359. Dr. Reddy's was down Rs 19 at Rs 803. Ranbaxy was up a rupee at Rs 358.L&T gained over 2% (Rs 29) to Rs 1,386. HDFC moved up Rs 12 to Rs 940. Hero Honda was up Rs 11 at Rs 715.LIC Housing zoomed 13% (Rs 24) to Rs 209. Glaxo moved up 5% (Rs 46) to Rs 915. Pfizer was also up over 5% (Rs 41) at Rs 834. Engineers India, Geometric and Bombay Dyeing finished with gains of over 4% each today.TV 18, which announced a tie-up with Turner International today for a general news channel, moved up 7% (Rs 24) to Rs 374.VSNL plunged over 10% (Rs 31) to Rs 278. Hinduja TMT declined 8% to Rs 334. HCL Tech was down 7% (Rs 31) at Rs 424.Reliance was the most active counter with a turnover of Rs 309 crore followed by SBI (Rs 291 crore), Suzlon (Rs 110 crore), Satyam (Rs 103 crore) and Reliance Capital (Rs 101 crore).
