Sensex slips amid sharp volatile trades

The market saw high volatility during the day, as stocks gyrated between the either sides of the zones throughout the session with the Sensex witnessing the intra-day swing of 289 points. The market opened lower due to the overnight loss in the US markets, but pared early loss as investors' sentiment turned positive as the Sensex neared its lifetime high of 13,559 points. Thereafter, sustained selling in frontline, information (IT) and Teck stocks saw the Sensex enter into negative territory. After displaying some range-bound moves, the market plunged deep into the red on heavy selling towards the close to touch the day's low of 13,270. The Sensex finally closed the session at 13,331, down 139 points. The Nifty had a flat close at 4,040, down 9 points.

The breadth of the market was negative. Of the 2,649 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,576 stocks declined, 1,009 stocks advanced and 64 stocks ended unchanged. Among the sectoral indices the BSE IT index shed 5.94%, the BSE Teck index declined 3.83% and the BSE FMCG index was down 1.46%. However, the BSE PSU, Metal, Oil & Gas, Auto and CD indexes closed in the green.

Selective buying helped the index overcome its losses. ONGC gained 1.56% at Rs866.85, NTPC advanced 3.15% at Rs167 and Mahindra & Mahindra added 2.91% at Rs546.45. SBI, Tata Steel, Ambuja Cement, Tata Motors, Reliance Infrastructure and Hindustan Unilever notched up steady gains.

Selling was evident in select heavyweights. Ranbaxy Laboratories dropped 10.45% at Rs475.90, Satyam Computer Services declined 7.92% at Rs444.45, Infosys tumbled 7.18% at Rs1,556.10, Tata Consultancy Services shed 3.79% at Rs768.95, HDFC dipped 3.38% at Rs1,935.90, BHEL was down 3.37% at Rs1,470 and ITC shed 3.30% at Rs168.70.

Over 1.80 crore IFCI shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Reliance Natural Resources (1.46 crore shares), Ispat Industries (1.23 crore shares), Chambal Fertilisers (84.91 lakh shares) and Reliance Petroleum (52.64 lakh shares).