Sensex sheds 83pts; Hero, Ranbaxy drag

Mirroring solid gains in world markets, the Sensex opened with a positive gap of 79 points at 14,242, and soon spurted to a high of 14,282. The upmove was capped owing to weakness in technology sector.

As selling spread to other counters, the index slipped into red in noon trades. Towards the close the index dropped to a low of 14,057 - down 227 points from the day's high. The Sensex finally ended with a loss of 83 points at 14,080.

The market breadth was negative - out of 2,596 stocks traded, 1,416 declined, 1,120 advanced and 60 were unchanged today.

ON SHAKY GROUND

Ranbaxy and Hero Honda tumbled nearly 4% each to Rs 359 and Rs 654, respectively. Tata Steel dropped nearly 2% to Rs 589.

HDFC Bank shed 1.7% to Rs 1,090. TCS, Wipro and HDFC slipped around 1.5% each to Rs 1,167, Rs 523 and Rs 1,760, respectively.

Bajaj Auto and Satyam declined 1.3% each to Rs 2,081 and Rs 477, respectively.

Larsen & Toubro, Infosys, Reliance Communications, NTPC and Tata Motors were the other major losers.

ICICI Bank, however, advanced 1% to Rs 918.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Time Technoplast topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 217 crore followed by Nestle (Rs 123 crore), Reliance (Rs 103 crore), Divi's Lab (Rs 98 crore) and debutant Gory Polyfilms (Rs 96.75 crore).

IKF Technologies led the volume chart with trades of around 1.90 crore shares followed by Glory Polyfilms (1.57 crore), IFCI (1.55 crore), Reliance Natural (77 lakh) and G V Films (57.35 lakh).