Sensex drops 8pts; Piramyd gains 10%

The Sensex opened with a small positive gap of four points at 8,827, but dropped to a low of 8,784 in late morning deals. Buying at lower levels saw the index move up to a high of 8,915 - an intra-day swing of 131 points. Profit-taking at higher levels saw the index shed all the gains, and finish the day with a loss of eight points at 8,815.

The sectoral indices finished on a mixed note. The BSE Consumer Durables Index zoomed over 2% (64 points) to 3,032. The BSE Teck Index was up six points at 2,291. The BSE PSU, MidCap and SmallCap indices also closed with marginal gains.

The BSE Bankex dropped 0.9% (41 points) to 4,751. The BSE Auto, FMCG, Healthcare, Oil & Gas and Metal indices also declined today.

Declines continued to be ahead of advances - out of 2,513 scrips traded, 1,328 declined, 1,116 advanced and 69 were unchanged today.

SBI declined 1.4% (Rs 12) to Rs 880. HLL was down Rs 2 at Rs 186, and ITC was down a rupee at Rs 133.

Grasim slipped over 2% (Rs 29) to Rs 1,371. Bharti dropped 1.8% (Rs 6) to Rs 341.

Bajaj was down Rs 8 at Rs 1,988, and Tata Motors slipped Rs 5 to Rs 550.

BHEL dropped Rs 23 to Rs 1,380. HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Tata Steel and Hindalco also declined today.

ONGC moved up 2.8% (Rs 28) to Rs 1,052. Reliance Energy was up over 2% (Rs 14) at Rs 617. Tata Power added Rs 7 to Rs 434.

TCS gained 1.8% (Rs 27) to Rs 1,555. Infosys moved up Rs 10 to Rs 2,797. While Wipro was up Rs 6 at Rs 428, Satyam was up Rs 3 at Rs 654.

Piramyd Retail was listed at Rs 146 as against the IPO price of Rs 120. After moving between a high of Rs 149 and low of Rs 130, the scrip finally closed at Rs 132 - a gain of 10% over the issue price. The counter logged a volume of over 46 lakh shares and turnover of Rs 63.80 crore on the first day of trading.

Reliance was the most active counter with a turnover of Rs 197 crore followed by Reliance Capital (Rs 153 crore), SBI (Rs 142 crore), Titan (Rs 99 crore) and Infosys (Rs 66 crore).