Sensex down 138pts; BPCL drops 4%

The Sensex opened with a marginal gain of four points at 8,966, and moved up to a high of 9,011 in early deals. Profit-taking commenced soon after, and it was a downward spiral there after... The index plunged to a low of 8,803 towards the closing bell - an intra-day swing of 208 points. The Sensex finally closed with a loss of 138 points (1.5%) at 8,823.

All the sectoral indices slipped today. The BSE Teck Index dropped 1.7% (40 points) to 2,285. The BSE Bankex declined 1.4% (70 points) to 4,792. The BSE PSU Index was also down 1.4% (73 points) to 5,028. The BSE Capital Goods, Healthcare, Metal, Oil & Gas and Auto indices also declined.

Declines were ahead of advances - out of 2,514 scrips traded, 1,433 declined, 1,021 advanced and 60 were unchanged today.

Infosys dropped 2% (Rs 56) to Rs 2,787. While Wipro declined 2% (Rs 9) to Rs 422, Satyam slipped 1.3% (Rs 8) to Rs 651. TCS was down Rs 20 at Rs 1,520.

SBI declined 2% (Rs 19) to Rs 892. ONGC was down Rs 11 at Rs 1,024. ITC dropped 2.5% (Rs 3) to Rs 134.

HLL was firm right through the session, and closed with a gain of Rs 3 at Rs 188. Reliance was up a notch at Rs 839.

ACC slipped 2.7% (Rs 14) to Rs 524. Grasim declined 1.9% (Rs 26) to Rs 1,400. Gujarat Ambuja was down a rupee at Rs 82.

Hero Honda was down over 3% (Rs 25) at Rs 797, and Tata Motors dropped Rs 12 to Rs 555. While Bajaj was up Rs 7 at Rs 1,990,  Maruti was up Rs 2 at Rs 619.

Tata Power dropped over 3% (Rs 13) to Rs 427. HDFC declined 2.9% (Rs 33) to Rs 1,112. Bharti also slipped 2.9% (Rs 10) to Rs 348. Reliance Energy, BHEL, L&T, Cipla, Dr. Reddy's, Ranbaxy, Hindalco and Tata Steel also declined.

BPCL dropped over 4% (Rs 19) to Rs 420. IOC declined over 3% (Rs 18) to Rs 523. Kochi Refineries and HPCL also declined today.

Welspun Gujarat Stahl Rohren gained 4.5% to Rs 85. Castral gained 4% to Rs 248. Tata Elxsi, UTI Bank and Nestle also finished with gains.

Bombay Rayon, which was listed today, opened at Rs 82.30 as against the IPO price of Rs 70. After moving between a high of Rs 90 and low of Rs 82, the stock finally closed at Rs 83 - a gain of 18% over the IPO price. The counter logged a volume of over 92.19 lakh shares today.

Reliance was the most active counter with a turnover of Rs 145 crore followed by Reliance Capital (Rs 141 crore), SBI (Rs 107 crore), Bombay Rayon (Rs 77 crore) and Infosys (Rs 49 crore).