Sensex drops 43 pts; metal scrips rally

The Sensex opened higher at 7,806 (up nine points over its yesterday's close), and soon touched a high of 7,818 on buying in select counters.

Although selling pressure dragged the markets lower in early trades, it displayed a range-bound trend thereafter with a mixed bias.

The market witnessed a steep fall towards the closing bell as sharp correction in banking, tech and select heavyweights dragged the index to an intra-day low of 7,739 - down 79 points from the day's high.

The Sensex finally ended with a loss of 43 points at 7,754.

The sectoral indices closed on a mixed note. The BSE Metal Index was up nearly 2% at 6,172. The BSE SmallCap and BSE MidCap indices closed with gains of 1% each. The BSE Auto Index declined nearly a per cent to 3,258. The BSE Bankex, Teck, FMCG and Oil&Gas indices also declined.

Advances outnumbered declines - out of 2,607 scrips traded, 1,510 advanced, 1,041 declined and 56 were unchanged today.

Satyam shed 3% (Rs 17) to Rs 523. Infosys, TCS and Wipro were down a per cent each at Rs 2,291 (down Rs 21), Rs 1,285 (down Rs 9) and Rs 723 (down Rs 7), respectively.

ONGC, Reliance and HLL ended marginally weak at Rs 951 (down Rs 5), Rs 726 (down Rs 3) and Rs 165 (down Rs 2), respectively.

ICICI Bank tumbled 2.60% (Rs 13) to Rs 500. HDFC Bank declined 1.33% (Rs 9) to Rs 675. SBI also ended lower at Rs 805.

Bajaj dropped 3.33% (Rs 51) to Rs 1,482, and Hero Honda lost 2.62% (Rs 17) to Rs 614. Tata Motors and Maruti, however, ended marginally higher at Rs 503 and Rs 501, respectively.

Tata Power scaled up nearly 5% (Rs 20) to Rs 429. BHEL, after a mixed outing, advanced 2% (Rs 22) to Rs 1,099. Reliance Energy gained 1.33% (Rs 8) to Rs 647.

Bharti pared some gains on profit-taking, but still ended 3.12% higher (Rs 9) at Rs 293.

Metal scrips logged gains. SAIL gained nearly 7% to Rs 60. Hindustan Zinc zoomed 8% to Rs 180. Ispat gained 5% to Rs 21. Hindalco, Tisco, Essar Steel, Sterlite, Gujarat NRE Coke, Nalco and JSWL also closed with gains.

Select private sector banking stocks also attracted attention. IndusInd Bank zoomed nearly 10% to 81. Federal Bank advanced 9% to Rs 201. Kotak Bank was up 6% at Rs 481.

SAIL topped the volume chart with trades in over 1.50 crore shares followed by IFSL(77 lakh) and Hindustan Motors (57 lakh).

Reliance was the most active counter with a turnover of over Rs 365 crore followed by Reliance Capital (Rs 251 crore) and VSNL (Rs 142 crore).