Sensex slips 70pts; Hero Honda drops 6%

The Sensex opened 16 points higher at 10,700. The index could barely manage to touch an intra-day high of 10,704, before slipping into the negative zone.

The index dropped to a low of 10,567 - an intra-day swing of just 137 points. The index finally settled with a loss of 70 points at 10,614.

The BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices however finished with marginal gains at 4350 and 5259, respectively.

While the Auto index slipped 2.3% to 4619, the Metal index dropped 1.8% to 8242.

The market breadth was neutral - out of 2,457 stocks traded, 1,170 advanced, 1,217 declined and the rest were unchanged today.

INDEX MOVERS & SHAKERS

Cipla surged over 3% to Rs 221. Dr.Reddy's added 1% to Rs 1,327.

Cement stocks witnessed fresh buying towards the end. Gujarat Ambuja spurted 2.5% to Rs 106. Grasim and ACC moved up 1% each to Rs 1,955 and Rs 818, respectively.

Satyam advanced 1.5% to Rs 719.

Hero Honda plunged 6% to Rs 720 after the company announced its Q1 numbers. The earnings were said to be below market expectataions.

Tata Motors dropped 3.5% to Rs 757, and Maruti slipped over 2% to Rs 788.

Hidalco and Tata Steel shed over 2% each to Rs 168 and Rs 515, respectively.

HLL, HDFC Bank and Bharti Airtel declined 2% each to Rs 235, Rs 763 and Rs 382, respectively.

TCS, ONGC, Infosys, ICICI Bank and Reliance Energy were the other prominent losers today.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 166.72 crore followed by Tata Steel (Rs 136 crore), Reliance Capital (Rs 113 crore), Infosys (Rs 88 crore) and Century Textiles (Rs 78.32 crore).

SAIL led the volume chart with trades of around 45.15 lakh shares followed by India Cement (29.75 lakh), Tata Steel (26.30 lakh), Kirloskar Electricals (25.71 lakh) and HLL (24.25 lakh).