The Sensex opened 40 points higher at 9,242, and soon touched a high of 9,247 before slipping into the negative zone. Weakness in auto and select technology stocks saw the index slide to a low of 9,017 - down 230 points from the day's high.

Selective buying towards the close helped the index cut losses. The index finally ended with a loss of 111 points at 9,091. The NSE Nifty ended at 2,780, down 23 points.

The market breadth was fairly negative - out of 2,566 stocks traded, 1,453 declined, 1,006 advanced and the rest were unchanged on Thursday.

Index Shakers. . .

Sterlite and Mahindra & Mahindra slumped 5.7% each to Rs 263 and Rs 267, respectively.

Maruti [Get Quote] plunged 4% to Rs 578. HDFC [Get Quote] shed 3.8% at Rs 1,390, and TCS [Get Quote] dropped 3.3% to Rs 483.

Tata Motors [Get Quote] and Larsen & Toubro slipped over 2.5% each to Rs 132 and Rs 637, respectively.

Reliance Communications [Get Quote], Hindalco [Get Quote] and Wipro [Get Quote] declined around 2% each to Rs 160, Rs 43 and Rs 220, respectively.

Infosys [Get Quote] shed 1.8% at Rs 1,260. Reliance, Hindustan Unilever, Tata Power [Get Quote], Jaiprakash Associates [Get Quote] and HDFC Bank were down around 1.5% each at Rs 1,287, Rs 264, Rs 743, Rs 68 and Rs 884, respectively.

. . .And The Movers

Grasim [Get Quote] surged over 3% to Rs 1,326.

Tata Steel [Get Quote] and Ranbaxy [Get Quote] moved up around 1.5% each to Rs 182 and Rs 209, respectively.

Most Active Counters

Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 192.85 crore followed by Wire & Wireless (Rs 106.40 crore), Reliance Infrastructure (Rs 99.35 crore), Satyam [Get Quote] (Rs 87.75 crore) and Reliance Capital [Get Quote] (Rs 80.30 crore).

Wire & Wireless led the volume chart with trades of around 5.80 crore shares followed by Mercator Lines [Get Quote] (2.20 crore), FSL (1.95 crore), Satyam (1.90 crore) and Ispat Industries [Get Quote] (1.50 crore).