Bajaj dropped 3.10% (Rs 34) to Rs 1,056, and Hero Honda was down a per cent (Rs 5) at Rs 539. While Maruti slumped 2.88% (Rs 12) to Rs 420, Tata Motors shed 2.30% (Rs 10) to Rs 424.
BHEL declined 2% (Rs 16) to Rs 786. While Tisco plunged 3.82% (Rs 16) to Rs 394, Tata Power dipped a per cent (Rs 4) to Rs 358.
Advances and declines were evenly matched - Out of 2,402 scrips traded, 1,332 advanced, 1,010 declined and 60 were unchanged today.
BEML was locked at its 20% upper limit at Rs 467 - a gain of Rs 78- after the company announced a 444% increase in PBT. The counter logged a huge volume of 1,22,447 shares as against the 2-week average volume of 64,771 shares. There was pending buy orders of over 30,000 shares with no sellers.
Select tech and pharma scrips logged gains today.Tata Infotech zoomed 8% to Rs 568. CMC was up 5% at Rs 644. Polaris, Mastek, Visualsoft, Sonata, Aztec and Trigyn also moved up today.
Orchid Chemicals moved up 7% to Rs 340. Ipca Labs, Matrix and Divi's also closed with gains.
Birla scrips also firmed up today. Century Textiles gained 5% to Rs 245. Indian Rayon and Indo-Gulf also moved up.
Steel and metal scrips were weak today. Jindal Vijaynagar dropped 4% to Rs 374. Ispat, Jindal Steel, Jindal Stainless, Uttam Galva, Monnet Ispat, Essar Steel, Mukand, Usha Martin, Nalco and Pennar Aluminium also declined.
GV Films topped the volume chart with trades in over 1.82 crore shares followed by Pentamedia Graphics (61.61 lakh shares) and HFCL (61.46 lakh shares).
Tata Steel was the most active counter with a turnover of nearly Rs 80 crore followed by Bombay Dyeing (Rs 70 crore) and ICICI Bank (Rs 67.73 crore).