Sensex drops 64pts; Infosys down 5%

Following the Q3 earnings of two index heavyweights, the Sensex opened with a huge negative gap of 111 points, and dropped to a low of 9304. However, the index staged a smart recovery soon, and touched a high of 9435 - 10 points short of its previous close.

Thereafter, the index exhibited a range-bound movement with a negative bias. As the index slipped back towards the day's low, a fresh round of buying towards the close lifted the index back to higher levels.

After moving in a range of 131 points, the Sensex finally closed with a loss of 64 points at 9381.

The BSE Teck index slumped 1.5% to 2399. The BSE Healthcare and Oil & Gas indices were down 1% each at 3233 and 4445, respectively.

While the BSE Smallcap Index gained 0.6% at 6207, the BSE Midcap Index ended almost flat at 4630.

The market breath was fairly neutral - out of 2,570 stocks traded, 1,230 stocks moved up, 1,282 declined and the rest were unchanged today.

Infosys slumped to an intra-day low of Rs 2,760 in early deals following the announcement of Q3 numbers yesterday. The stock finally ended with a loss of 4.7% (Rs 140) at Rs 2,835.

Other tech stocks also had a weak start, but recovered smartly to finish with gains. From a low of Rs 714, Satyam rallied to a high of Rs 752 before settling with a gain of 2.2% at Rs 747. TCS at Rs 1,678 and Wipro at Rs 461 also closed with gains.

Reliance, which announced its Q3 earnings a day before Infosys, tumbled to a low of Rs 874 in early trades. However, the stock erased some losses and closed 0.7% lower at Rs 887.

Reliance Energy declined 1.9% to Rs 589. ONGC was down 1.8% at Rs 1,182.

HDFC shed 1.7% at Rs 1,200. ICICI Bank dropped 1% to Rs 578. SBI, however, advanced 2.5% to Rs 933.

Ranbaxy slipped 2.4% to Rs 384. While Cipla moved up marginally to Rs 441, Dr.Reddy's slipped a bit to Rs 1,028.

Bajaj Auto and Bharti Tele also declined over 1% each today.

Grasim gained nearly 3% to Rs 1,462. ACC and Gujarat Ambuja exhibited high volatility before settling at Rs 534, down 1% and Rs 88, up 0.6%, respectively.

Engineers India hit the 20% upper limit at Rs 883. Dredging Corporation zoomed nearly 10% to Rs 678. Sterlite, Balaji Tele and Alstom Projects surged over 8% each.

Container Corporation at Rs 1,347 and Hexaware at Rs 132 declined over 4% each. Suzlon, Apollo Hospitals, Mastek, VisualSoft and Kotak Bank were down in the range of 3-4% each.

Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 698.08 crore followed by Infosys (Rs 452.03 crore), Satyam (Rs 156.13 crore), SBI (Rs 146.07 crore) and HDFC (Rs 144.57 crore).

Reliance also topped the volume chart with trades of over 78.98 lakh shares followed by GV Films (73.84 lakh), Bartronics (56.99 lakh), Celebrity Fashions (42.82 lakh) and Ashok Leyland (37.59 lakh).