Sensex sheds 81 points at close

The markets displayed extremely volatility during the intra-day trades today. After a flat opening at 6,534, the index rose to a high of 6,568 on selective buying in early trades, but soon lost ground to exhibit a weak trend.

Hectic activity was witnessed in late noon trades as the index, which bounced back into the green for a brief period, soon plunged deep into the red on fresh selling pressure to touch an intra-day low of 6,435 - a fall of 133 points to its intra-day high.

The Sensex finally signed-off the session with another sharp fall of 81 points at 6,454.

The Nifty, too, ended with a steep slide of 36 points at 2,026.

While 11 Sensex stocks advanced, 19 declined today. Advancing shares accounted for a volume of 92 lakh for Rs 475.08 crore, and declining shares registered a volume of 1.42 crore amounting to Rs 716.41 crore.

ONGC tumbled 3.63% (Rs 32) to Rs 862.

Infosys dropped 2.73% (Rs 61) to Rs 2,162. While Satyam shed 2.20% (Rs 9) to Rs 390, Wipro lost 2.64% (Rs 18) to Rs 657.

SBI crashed 5% (Rs 35) to Rs 658. While HDFC Bank slumped 3.52% (Rs 19) to Rs 531, ICICI Bank slipped a per cent (Rs 4) to Rs 391.

Bajaj tumbled 2.45% (Rsw 26) to Rs 1,034. While Maruti lost 2.21% (Rs 9) to Rs 411, Tata Motors declined 2.49% (Rs 11) to Rs 423. Hero Honda, however, moved up 1.83% (Rs 10) to Rs 540.

HDFC at Rs 709 (down Rs 30 or 4%), L&T at Rs 982 (down Rs 26 or 2.56%), Tata Power at Rs 343 (down Rs 17 or 4.77%), Tisco at Rs 408 (down Rs 9 or 2.17%) and Zee at Rs 130 (down Rs 7 or 5.15%)

were battered today.

Reliance jumped 1.60% (Rs 9) to Rs 553. While HLL gained 2.26% (Rs 3) to Rs 134, ITC clocked a per cent gain (Rs 11) to Rs 1,285.

Dr. Reddy's advanced 3.10% (Rs 23) to Rs 754. While Ranbaxy gained a per cent (Rs 9) to Rs 1,078, Cipla slipped 1.27% (Rs 3) to Rs 261.

Grasim lost 1.18% (Rs 15) to Rs 412. While ACC ended a rupee lower at Rs 357, Gujarat Ambuja was up a per cent (Rs 3) at Rs 412.

Bharti was up a per cent (Rs 2) at Rs 214.