The Sensex opened on a flat note at 6,477, which also turned out to be the high for the day. The index was in negative zone right through the session, and dipped to a low of 6,382 towards the closing bell. The Sensex finally closed with a loss of 82 points (1.3%) at 6,397 points. While 24 index scrips declined, six advanced today. Declining shares logged a volume of 86 lakh shares totalling Rs 422 crore. The turnover of advancing shares was low at Rs 25 crore. Frontline tech scrips were dumped today. Infosys dropped more than 2% (Rs 47) to Rs 2,079. While Satyam slipped 2.6% (Rs 11) to Rs 401, Wipro was down more than 2% (Rs 15) at Rs 652. Reliance declined 1.8% (Rs 10) to Rs 547. SBI lost 1.7% (Rs 11) to Rs 642. HLL dipped 1.4% (Rs 2) to Rs 130. ONGC slipped 1.1% (Rs 11) to Rs 875. ITC was down Rs 3 at Rs 1,399. ACC declined 1.5% (Rs 5) to Rs 357. Grasim was also down Rs 4 at Rs 1,197, but Gujarat Ambuja was up a rupee at Rs 405. Bajaj moved up 1.3% (Rs 13) to Rs 1,066. Hero Honda declined 2% (Rs 11) to Rs 524. Maruti was down over 2% (Rs 10) at Rs 402. HDFC Bank was firm from the noon session, and closed with a gain of over 2% (Rs 12) at Rs 559. Ranbaxy firmed up in late trades, and moved up a per cent (Rs 9) to Rs 986. ICICI Bank dropped 3% (Rs 11) to Rs 394. Bharti declined 2.3% (Rs 5) to Rs 208. With S&P hiking the offer price for Crisil to Rs 775 per share, the stock touched a high of Rs 765 in early deals. It finally closed with a gain of 6%(Rs 40) at Rs 745. The BSE Tech Index dropped over 2% (36 points) to 1,665. The BSE Oil &Gas and BSE Bankex declined over 1% each today. The mood was clearly bearish - out of 2,365 scrips traded, 1,465 declined, 838 advanced and 62 were unchanged today. Essar Steel topped the volume chart with a traded volume of nearly 74 lakh shares followed by Ispat Industries (nearly 60 lakh shares) and GV Films (nearly 44 lakh shares). Tata Steel was the most active counter with a turnover of Rs 76 crore followed by SBI (Rs 53 crore) and Tata Motors (Rs 52.83 crore). |