The Sensex opened with a negative gap of 267 points at 18,641 on weak global cues, and soon tumbled to a low of 18,333 - down 575 points from the previous close.The index exhibited range-bound movement for the major part of the day. Fresh buying in late noon trades saw the index recover most of its lost ground and touch a high of 18,815 - up 482 points from the day's low. The Sensex finally ended with a loss of 171 points at 18,737. The index has now shed 6.2% (1,239 points) in the last six trading sesssions.The BSE IT index shed 2.8% at 4135. The Auto and Oil & Gas indices were down around 2% each at 5110 and 11,369, respectively.The market breadth was fairly negative - out of 2,768 stocks traded, 1,697 declined, 1,017 advanced and 54 were unchanged today.INDEX MOVERS...ITC and NTPC zoomed 5% each to Rs 178 and Rs 254, respectively. SBI rallied 3.5% to Rs 2,237.Hindustan Unilever surged nearly 3% to Rs 199. Cipla gained 2.6% at Rs 182, and Hindalco added 2.3% at Rs 207.Ambuja Cements and Grasim gained 1.4% each at Rs 147 and Rs 3,548, respectively. Larsen & Toubro was up 1% at Rs 4,167....AND THE SHAKERSONGC slumped 4.8% to Rs 1,180. Bharti Airtel and HDFC Bank plunged around 4% each to Rs 833 and Rs 1,478, respectively.Infosys slipped 3.6% to Rs 1,642. Satyam, Mahindra & Mahindra and Bajaj Auto delcined around 3% each to Rs 413, Rs 720 and Rs 2,327, respectively.Tata Steel, TCS, Reliance and Reliance Communications dropped over 2% each to Rs 815, Rs 964, Rs 2,677 and Rs 695, respectively.VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERSReliance Natural Resources topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 316.70 crore followed by Reliance (Rs 283.80 crore), Bharti Airtel (Rs 253.60 crore), Reliance Petroleum (Rs 240.70 crore) and Reliance Energy (Rs 222.30 crore).Ispat Industries led the volume chart with trades of around 4.40 crore shares followed by Reliance Natural Resources (2.20 crore), Essar Oil (1.57 crore), MRPL (1.27 crore) and Reliance Petroleum (1.11 crore).
