Sensex drops 57pts; pharma stocks rally

The Sensex opened almost flat at 9644. Fresh buying in the early deals saw the index spurt to a new, life-time intra-day peak of 9690.

However, profit-taking at higher levels saw the index slip into negative zone. The index, thereafter, displayed range-bound movement before taking a sharp plunge towards the closing bell. The index tumbled all the way to a low of 9540 - down 150 points from the peak. The Sensex finally closed with a loss of 57 points at 9583.

The BSE Healthcare Index surged 1.3% to 3263. The BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices gained 0.7% each at 4659 and 6206, respectively. The BSE Bankex declined 1.1% to 5272.

The market breadth was a tad positive - out of 2,568 stocks traded, 1,410 advanced, 1,105 declined and the rest were unchanged today.

Dr.Reddy's surged 4% to Rs 1,062. Ranbaxy gained 2% at Rs 377, and Cipla also moved up to Rs 443.

Tata Power rallied 3.5% to Rs 463.

Wipro tumbled over 3% to Rs 458. Satyam slipped 2.2% to Rs 743.
While TCS shed 1% at Rs 1,687, Infosys ended 0.7% lower at Rs 3,032.

Reliance dropped 1.3% (Rs 12) to Rs 908.

SBI was down 2% at Rs 922. ICICI Bank at Rs 588 and HDFC Bank at Rs 755 also declined nearly 2% each.

Maruti declined 2% at Rs 657. Hero Honda was down 1.5% at Rs 863.

Hindalco, Larsen & Toubro, Tata Steel, Gujarat Ambuja, HDFC, Grasim, HLL, Tata Motors and ACC also slipped today.

Aurobindo Pharma zoomed 10% to Rs 489. Strides Arcolab gained 4.2% to Rs 328. Biocon, Elder Pharma, Matrix Labs, Nicholas Piramal, Orchid, Sun and Wyeth added gains in the range of 1-3% each.

Welspun Gujarat soared 9% to Rs 98. Indian Overseas Bank was up 7.8% at Rs 122. India Cements gained 5.9% to Rs 122. GSK Consumer, Jet, IPCL, Dabur, United Phosphorous, Godrej Consumer, Balaji Tele, Colgate, Punjab Tractors, Pidilite, ICI India, MTNL and CMC gained in the range of 3-5% each.

Vijaya Bank declined 3% to Rs 67. Hexaware, Union Bank, FDC, IDBI, Alfa Laval, Essel Propack, IBP, Canara Bank, Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Proctor & Gamble, Micro Inks, Jindal Steel and Tamilnadu Newsprint were down 1-2% each.

Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 238.71 crore followed by Tulip IT (Rs 111.75 crore), SBI (Rs 100.14 crore), Punj Lloyd (Rs 96.11 crore) and ONGC (Rs 93.57 crore).

IPCL topped the volume chart with a volume of around 34.40 lakh shares followed by ITC (27.22 lakh shares), Reliance (26.08 lakh shares), MTNL (22.64 lakh shares) and India Cements (16.98 lakh shares).