Volatile Sensex slips 136pts

The Sensex opened lower at 16,256 owing to extremely weak Asian cues. The Asian markets fell after the US Federal Reserve raised its discount rate. The Hang Seng plunged 528 points or 2.5% to 19,894 and Nikkei dropped 212 points or 2% to 10,123.

Profit booking in realty and metal indices saw the index touch a low of 16,074. Volatily was displayed in today's session as the index cut losses in mid afternoon trades. The Sensex recovered and touched a high of 16,302, up 228 points from the day's low. However, the iindex failed to sustain the partail recovery and finally ended at 16,192, down 136 points. The NSE Nifty shut shop at 4,845, down 43 points

The market breadth was negative, out of 2,878 shares traded, 2,008 declined and 797 advanced so far on the BSE.

Among the sectoral indices, realty and the metal indices slipped 3% each to 3,190 and 15,807, respectively.

INDEX SHAKERS...

Jaiprakash Associates and DLF declined 4% to Rs 129 and Rs 291, respectively. Reliance Communication and Sterlite Industries slipped 3% each to Rs 162 and Rs 746, respectively.

Tata Steel, Reliance Infrastucture, SBI, Tata Motors, NTPC and Hindalco were the other major losers on the index, down 1-2% each.

...AND THE MOVERS

HDFC Bank, Maruti Suzuki, ONGC and HDFC were up over 0.5% each.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

HDFC Bank topped the value chart on the BSE with a turnover of Rs 149.82 crore. It was followed by Reliance (Rs 95.71 crore), SBI (Rs 91.45 crore), Tata Steel (Rs 84.55 crore) and Unitech (Rs 82.38 crore).

Cals Refineries led the value chart on the BSE with trades of 14.55 million shares. It was followed by Unitech (11.87 million), Thangamayil Jewellery (8.61 million), Spice Jet (7.52 million) and Chambal Fertilisers (5.84 million).