The index touched a day's low of 15,709 in morning trades, it recovered partially and touched a day's high of 15,985 due to buying in oil & gas sector.
The index finally ended with a loss of 100 points at 15,962.
The market breadth was negative - out of 2,722 stocks traded, 1,817 declined, 847 advanced and 58 were unchanged today.
The NSE Nifty settled with a loss of 24 points at 4,716.
INDEX SHAKERS...
Bharti Airtel tumbled 4.1% to Rs 841. Reliance Infrastructure plunged 3.9% to Rs 1,125.
Satyam declined 3.6% to Rs 500. BHEL and HDFC slipped around 3% each to Rs 1,548 and Rs 2,459, respectively.
Jaiprakash Associates dipped 2.6% to Rs 206. Larsen & Toubro lost 2.3% to Rs 2,849.
HDFC Bank dropped 1.8% to Rs 1,282. Infosys was down 1.4% at Rs 1,922.
NTPC, Tata Steel and Grasim were the other major losers, down 0.7% each at Rs 160, Rs 862 and Rs 2,194, respectively.
...AND THE MOVERS
ACC gained 3.7% to Rs 649. Ranbaxy moved up 3% at Rs 530.
DLF and Wipro advanced 2.6% each to Rs 582 and Rs 508, respectively.
Reliance was up 2.2% to Rs 2,407. Tata Motors and Cipla added 1.3% each to Rs 570 and Rs 210, respectively.
Hindalco and ONGC were up 1.1% each at Rs 184 and Rs 842, respectively.
MOST ACTIVE COUNTERS
Reliance led the value chart with a turnover of Rs 279.09 crore followed by Reliance Capital (Rs 211.80 crore), Essar Oil (Rs 165.60 crore), Reliance Petroleum (Rs 155.41 crore) and IFCI (Rs 128.42 crore).
IFCI topped the volume chart with trades of around 2.14 crore shares followed by Ispat Industries (1.45 crore), Aishwarya Telecom (1.12 crore), Chambal Fertilisers (98 lakh) and Reliance Natural Resources (96 lakh).
