Another choppy day... Sensex slips 257pts

Following yesterday's 435-points fall, the Sensex today opened 21 points lower at 14,503. Constant bouts of buying and selling in the markets saw the index to gyrate between the zones.

The index touched a high of 14,613 in early noon trades. However the index failed to retain its firmness and plunged to a low of 14,188, owing to heavy selling in the realty and metal stocks for the second consecutive day.

Extreme volatility was witnessed throughout the day and the Sensex finally ended at 14,265, down 257 points.

The BSE Realty index tumbled 6% to 3,190. The Metal index shed 5% to 10,738.

The Capital Goods and Power indexes declined over 3.5% each.

The market breadth was extremely negative - out of 2,684 shares traded, 2,095 declined, 533 advanced and 56 were unchanged on the BSE.

INDEX SHAKERS...

ACC tumbled 8% to Rs 758.

Jaiprakash Associates, Tata Steel and Hindalco slumped over 6.5% each to Rs 191, Rs 389 and Rs 87, respectively.

Grasim declined 6% to Rs 2,174. NTPC shed 5% to Rs 202.

ONGC, Reliance Infrastructure, Larsen & Toubro, Reliance Communications and DLF dropped 3-4% each.

...AND THE MOVERS

SBI advanced 2% to Rs 1,702.

Sun Pharma and Tata Motors added 1.5% each to Rs 1,316 and Rs 328, respectively.

OTHER PROMINENT LOSERS...

Suzlon Energy slumped 10.5% to Rs 100. Aban Offshore, HDIL, JSW Steel, Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation, Max India, Moser Baer, Ispat, Torrent Power, PunjLloyd, Power Grid, Mangalore Refineries, Bhushan Steel and Praj Industries declined 7-9.5% each.

...AND THE GAINERS

Mphasis gained 6.5% at Rs 369. Marico, Tata Teleservices Maharashtra, Tech Mahindra, IDBI Bank, Biacon, GVK Power Infrastructures, Hero Honda, Andhra Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Castrol India and Balrampur Chini advanced 2-4.5% each.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Jaiprakash Associates topped the value chart with a total turnover of Rs 841.91 crore. It was followed by Reliance (Rs 329.33 crore), Reliance Capital (Rs 266.12 crore), Unitech (Rs 223.15 crore) and Reliance Natural Resources (Rs 221.17 crore).

Jaiprakash Associates also led the volume chart with trades of 42.26 million shares. It was followed by Unitech (28.26 million), Satyam Computers (24.42 million), Reliance Natural Resources (23.88 million) and Ispat (19.30 million).