Sensex ends flat on late recovery; tech stocks slump

The Sensex opened marginally (24 points) higher at 9,679. The index touched a high of 9,746 in early trades, but soon slipped into red. Significant weakness in technology stocks saw the index slip to a low of 9,442 - down 304 points from the day's high.

The Sensex, however, recovered smartly towards the close and rebounded into the positive zone. The index finally ended almost flat at green at 9,646 - down nine points.

The BSE Realty index surged over 2% to 2,048. The Oil & Gas index moved up 1.7% to 6,005, and Metal index gained 1.4% at 5,253.

On the other hand, the IT index shed almost 4% at 2,359. The Consumer Durables index shed 2.6% at 1,693, and the Healthcare index slipped over 1% to 2,818.

The market breadth was fairly positive - out of 2,565 stocks traded, 1,561 advanced, 908 declined and the rest were unchanged today.

INDEX MOVERS...

Jaiprakash Associates zoomed 10.6% to Rs 83. Sterlite soared 8.5% to Rs 295.

Reliance Communications surged nearly 5% to Rs 239. ACC rallied nearly 3% to Rs 490, and Reliance added 2.5% to Rs 1,259.

ICICI Bank advanced 1.5% to Rs 406.

...AND THE SHAKERS

TCS slumped over 6% to Rs 508. Satyam tumbled over 5% to Rs 224. Wipro plunged 4.5% to Rs 250, and Infosys dropped over 3% to Rs 1,136.

Hindalco shed 4.5% at Rs 51. BHEL slipped nearly 3% to Rs 1,374, and DLF declined over 2% to Rs 257.

ONGC was down 1.8% at Rs 665. Tata Motors, Grasim and Hindustan Unilever were down around 1.5% each at Rs 161, Rs 1,083 and Rs 241, respectively.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 416.25 crore followed by DLF (Rs 234.10 crore), Reliance Capital (Rs 216.70 crore), SBI (Rs 213.50 crore) and Reliance Natural Resources (Rs 168.55 crore).

Reliance Natural Resources led the volume chart with trades of around 3.33 crore shares followed by Suzlon (2.47 crore), Unitech (2.15 crore), GVK Power (2.13 crore) and Jaiprakash Associates (1.64 crore).