Sensex recovers on late buying, ends down 66pts

Mirroring weak trend in the global markets, the Sensex opened with a negative gap of 152 points at 14,413. After attempting a pull back the index slipped deeper into red to a low of 14,281 - down 284 points from the previous close.

The index, however, recovered most of its losses towards the close on the back of fresh buying in select banking and FMCG stocks. The Sensex touched a high of 14,547, and finally ended with a marginal loss of 66 points at 14,499.

The market breadth turned marginally positve towards the close - out of 2,680 stocks traded, 1,331 advanced, 1,252 declined and 97 were unchanged today.

INDEX SHAKERS...

Ranbaxy plunged 3.6% to Rs 500.

Tata Steel, Maruti and Bharti Airtel shed 2.5% each at Rs 584, Rs 634 and Rs 816, respectively.

Reliance Communications dropped 1.7% to Rs 389. Infosys and Hindustan Unilever slipped almost 1.5% each to Rs 1,723 and Rs 242, respectively.

Tata Power, NTPC and Larsen & Toubro slipped over 1% each to Rs 1,039, Rs 173 and Rs 2,562, respectively.

ICICI Bank and Jaiprakash Associates were down 1% each at Rs 665 and Rs 163, respectively.

...AND THE MOVERS

ITC and HDFC Bank rallied around 1.5% each to Rs 192 and Rs 1,296, respectively.

BHEL, SBI and Satyam were the other notable gainers.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Debutant Resurgere Mines & Minerals led the value chart with a turnover of Rs 1,436.20 crore followed by Reliance Capital (Rs 214.30 crore), Reliance (Rs 173.40 crore), Nutek India (Rs 132.65 crore) and ICICI Bank (Rs 115.60 crore).

Resurgere Mines & Minerals also topped the volume chart with trades of around 3.32 crore shares followed by Reliance Natural Resources (1.18 crore), Nutek India (65.55 lakh), Chambal Fertilisers (53.22 lakh) and Noida Toll Bridge (44.58 lakh).