Sensex down 4pts, Hero Honda drops 4%

The Sensex opened on a flat note at 7,616, and touched a high of 7,640 in early deals. Selling commenced soon, and the index dropped to a low of 7,537 - down 103 points from the intra-day high.

Renewed buying at lower levels saw the index recoup lost ground, and close with a marginal loss of four points at 7,612.

All the sectoral indices declined today. The BSE Oil &Gas Index, however, was up 23 points at 3,542. The BSE Bankex was marginally higher at 4,441.

The mood was bearish - out of 2,634 scrips traded, 1,806 declined, 782 advanced and 46 were unchanged today.

Reliance moved up over a per cent (Rs 9) to Rs 695. ONGC was up Rs 5 at Rs 972.

Bharti Tele was up 2.5% (Rs 8) at Rs 311. ICICI Bank gained over 2% (Rs 10) to Rs 489. BHEL was firm right through the session, and closed with a gain of  2% (Rs 21) at Rs 1,057.

Hero Honda declined 4.4% (Rs 30) to Rs 650.

Wipro dropped 1.7% (Rs 6) to Rs 352. Satyam was down 1.6% at Rs 492. While TCS declined Rs 16 to Rs 1,300, Infosys was down Rs 19 at Rs 2,268.

Balaji Telefilms zoomed 7% to Rs 141. HCL Infosys added 6% to Rs 267. Visualsoft was up 6% at Rs 157.

Corporation Bank slipped 5% (Rs 20) to Rs 400. Federal Bank dropped 4% to Rs 175. BoB, Union Bank, BoI and IDBI also declined.

Reliance was the most active counter with a turnover of Rs 196 crore followed by Reliance Capital (Rs 168 crore), SRF (Rs 85 crore), VSNL (Rs 78 crore) and IFSL (Rs 71 crore).