Sensex down 66pts, Alstom zooms 20%

The Sensex opened on a flat note at 6,545, and touched a high of 6,561 in early deals. Sustained selling in heavyweights, particularly Infosys and Reliance, saw the index slip into negative zone.

The Sensex was in the red for most part of the trading session today. After dipping to a low of 6,457 - a drop of 104 points from the intra-day high - the Sensex finally closed with a loss of 1.01% (66 points) at 6,479.

While 25 index scrips declined, five advanced today. Declining shares accounted for a volume of 1.01 crore shares totalling Rs 527 crore, and advancing scrips clocked a volume of 12 lakh shares for Rs 61 crore.

Tech pivotals finished on a bearish note. Infosys tanked 2.8% (Rs 61) to Rs 2,127. While Satyam dropped 2.7% (Rs 11) to Rs 412, Wipro was down 2% (Rs 12) at Rs 667.

ITC zoomed 2% (Rs 28) to Rs 1,402. Reliance slipped 1.5% (Rs 8) to Rs 557. SBI was down Rs 2 at Rs 653. HLL and ONGC also declined.

Grasim dropped 1.7% (Rs 20) to Rs 1,201. Gujarat Ambuja and ACC also declined.

HDFC Bank declined 2.7% (Rs 15) to Rs 547. BHEL slipped 1.6% (Rs 12) to Rs 778. ICICI Bank, Hero Honda, Tata Motors, Tata Steel, L&T and Zee also finished on a weak note.

Bajaj closed with a steady gain of 1.4% (Rs 14) at Rs 1,053. Bharti was up Rs 4 at Rs 213, and HPCL was also up Rs 4 at Rs 323.

Select PSU and tech scrips attracted attention today.

FACT zoomed 14% to Rs 30. HMT gained 10% to Rs 42. Bongaigaon Refineries was up 4% at Rs 95.

Visualsoft was up 3% at Rs 122, and Polaris was also up 3% at Rs 118.

Alstom was locked at its 20% upper limit at Rs 109 - a gain of Rs 18.

The broad market was clearly bearish - out of 2,395 scrips traded, 1,364 declined, 959 advanced and 72 were unchanged today.

Ispat Industries topped the volume chart with trades in over 62 lakh shares followed by Gateway Distripark (38 lakh shares) and HOEC (nearly 38 lakh shares).

Reliance was the most active counter with a traded volume of nearly Rs 92 crore followed by Tata Steel (Rs 88 crore) and SBI (Rs 75 crore).