Sensex drops 60pts, tech scrips slide

 The Sensex finally closed with a loss of 60 points at 7,188.

 All the sectoral indices largely declined today. The BSE Teck index was down 2.6% (49 points) at 1,809. The Consumer Durables index dropped 3.8% (91 points) to 2,329. The BSE FMCG index, however, was up nearly a per cent at 1,312. The BSE Oil & Gas Index and BSE SmallCap Index also moved up today.

The breadth of the market was positive. Out of 2,556 scrips traded, 1,305 advanced, 1,181 declined and 70 were unchanged today.

Infosys plunged 3.13% (Rs 69) to Rs 2,134. TCS crashed 3.60% (Rs 46) to Rs 1,225, and Wipro dropped 1.84% (Rs 13) to Rs 696. Satyam was down 1.61% (Rs 8) at Rs 477.

ICICI Bank tumbled 3.94% (Rs 18) to Rs 446. SBI shed 2% (Rs 15) to Rs 712. HDFC Bank, however, was up a notch at Rs 645.

Hero Honda dropped 2.38% (Rs 15) to Rs 621. While Bajaj declined 1.37% (Rs 19) to Rs 1,370, Tata Motors was down 1.15% (Rs 5) at Rs 455.

ITC moved up 2.12% (Rs 37) to Rs 1,766, and Reliance was up 1.81% (Rs 11) at Rs 642.

L&T slumped 1.92% (Rs 24) to Rs 1,238, and Tata Power lost 1.40% (Rs 6) to Rs 402. BHEL, however, was up 2.25% (Rs 20) at Rs 898.

IT stocks fell sharply today. Hexaware, which had lowered its FY05 guidance yesterday, dropped 13% (Rs 16) to Rs 105. Rolta, Tata Elxsi, KPIT Cummins, Zensar and Silverline declined 2-3%.

CMC, which reported a 15% dip in consolidated net, advanced 7.12% (Rs 36) to Rs 548.

Zigma Software topped the volume chart with trades in over 1.14 crore shares followed by ITI (84 lakh shares) and Bellary Steel (61 lakh shares).

Reliance was the most active counter with a turnover of over Rs 203 crore followed by Titan (Rs 152 crore) and Reliance Capital (Rs 131 crore).