Sensex drops 76pts; Polaris zooms 8%

The Sensex opened with a negative gap of eight points at 8,603, but touched a high of 8,664 in late noon deals. The sentiment turned bearish towards the closing bell, and the index plunged to a low of 8,518 points - an intra-day swing of 146 points. The Sensex finally closed with a loss of 76 points (0.88%) at 8,535.

All the sectoral indices largely declined today. The BSE Metal Index dropped 1.9% (115 points) to 5,889. The BSE PSU Index was down 1.4% (71 points) to 4,889. The BSE Oil & Gas Index slipped 1.4% (56 points) to 4,031. The BSE Bankex, Teck, FMCG, Healthcare and Auto indices also declined.

The BSE Consumer Durables Index moved up 1.2% (32 points) to 2,767. The BSE Capital Goods Index was up 21 points at 5,050.

Declines were ahead of advances nearly 2:1 - out of 2,543 scrips traded, 1,602 declined, 873 advanced and 68 were unchanged.

ONGC dropped 2.6% (Rs 26) to Rs 994. While SBI declined 2% (Rs 17) to Rs 874, Reliance was down Rs 10 at Rs 819. ITC slipped Rs 2 to Rs 125.

TCS declined Rs 20 to Rs 1,498. Satyam was down Rs 5 at Rs 626, and Wipro dropped Rs 3 to Rs 417.

Ranbaxy declined 3.5% (Rs 14) to Rs 377. Tata Steel, Maruti, Dr. Reddy's, Cipla and Tata Power also declined today.

L&T added 1.4% (Rs 22) to Rs 1,571. While Bajaj moved up Rs 9 to Rs 2,050, Hero Honda was up Rs 6 at Rs 845. Infosys, ACC and Bharti also finished with gains.

Polaris zoomed 8% (Rs 9) to Rs 123. GSK Pharma advanced 5% (Rs 43) to Rs 1,042. Merck added 4% (Rs 17) to Rs 463. Pfizer was up 2.8% (Rs 23) to Rs 835. Syngenta, Kotak Bank, Gujarat Gas, Siemens, Titan and Abbott also closed with gains today.

Ispat dropped 9% to Rs 12. Union Bank was down 5% at Rs 113. FACT, Mastek, Sterlite, OBC and J&K Bank also declined.

Reliance was the most active counter with a turnover of Rs 281 crore followed by SBI (Rs 212 crore), Titan (Rs 158 crore), Reliance Capital (Rs 155 crore) and Satyam (Rs 84 crore).