The index, however, slipped back into red owing to lack of buying support at higher levels. The selling gain momentum in late noon trades and the index tumbled to a low of 16,679 - down 447 points from the high.
The Sensex finally ended with a loss of 344 points at 16,737.
Losers beat gainers in 3:1 ratio, i.e for every advancing share there were three declining stocks - out of 2,784 stocks traded, 2,017 declined, and 706 advanced today.
The NSE Nifty closed points 99 lower at 4,983.
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INDEX SHAKERS...
Jaiprakash Associates tumbled 6.6% to Rs 251. Reliance plunged over 5% to Rs 2,528.
Reliance Energy and ACC declined 4.5% each to Rs 1,332 and Rs 712, respectively.
HDFC Bank and Hindalco dropped 3.7% to Rs 1451 and Rs 174, respectively.
SBI, Cipla, HDFC and TCS slipped around 3% each to Rs 1,676, Rs 206, Rs 2,645 and 917, respectively.
DLF, BHEL and ICICI Bank shed 2% each at Rs 630, 1,725 and 874, respectively.
Larsen & Toubro, Ambuja Cements and Infosys declined 1.7% each to Rs 2,836, Rs 110 and Rs 1,751, respectively.
...AND THE MOVERS
Bharti Airtel gained 1.8% at Rs 842, and ITC advanced 1.5% to Rs 218.
Wipro was the other prominent gainer at Rs 501 - up 0.8%.
MOST ACTIVE COUNTERS
Aishwarya Telecom led the value chart with a turnover of Rs 502.00 crore followed by Reliance Petroleum (Rs 291.21 crore), Reliance Capital (Rs 283.57 crore), Reliance (Rs 268.66 crore) and IFCI (Rs 173 crore).
Aishwarya Telecom, also, topped the volume chart with trades of around 5.38 crore shares followed by IFCI (2.81 crore), Ispat Industries (1.57 crore), Reliance Petroleum (1.55 crore) and Reliance Natural Resources (1.21 crore).