Market cools a week after

A week after the Sensex gained over 550 points on sustained all-round buying, the market was range-bound during intra-day trades. After losing 80 points to yesterday's close, the market soon eased and slipped further in afternoon, as investors tracked weak Asian indices. Selling in CD, realty and teck undertakings triggered a major sell-off and the Sensex tumbled around 16100-mark to touch the day's low of 16120. However, select buying towards the close saw the Sensex pare some losses and end the session at 16214, down 50 points, while the Nifty shed 21 points to close at 4809.

The market breadth was marginally positive. Of the 2,855 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,472 stocks advanced, 1,310 stocks declined and 73 stocks ended unchanged. Among the sectoral indices BSE CD and BSE Realty shed 1%, while BSE Teck and BSE CG declined 0.55%. BSE Auto, BSE PSU and BSE Bankex were gainers and moved up marginally.

Select heavyweights declined sharply on strong selling pressure. Sterlite Industries tanked 3.55% to Rs719.45, Hindalco Industries dropped 2.46% to Rs121.10, Grasim Industries fell 2.01% to Rs2,596.95, Reliance Communications shed 1.83% to Rs292.45, DLF lost 1.67% to Rs392, ONGC declined 1.26% to Rs1161.55, Larsen & Toubro dipped 1.24% to Rs1,607.75 and ICICI Bank slumped 1.21% to Rs825.55. ITC, ACC, HDFC, Infosys Technologies and Bharti Airtel shed marginally. Among the select gainers Tata Steel advanced 2.12% to Rs479.10, Tata Motors added 1.97% at Rs561.80, State Bank of India gained 1.95% to trade at Rs1,956.15 and Hindustan Unilever was up 1.62% to Rs260.10.

Over 1.46 crore shares of Kirloskar Oil changed hands on the BSE followed by NHPC (1.40 crore shares), Ispat Industries (1.10 crore shares), IFCI (1.05 crore shares) and Suzlon Energy (0.89 crore shares).