The Sensex opened marginally higher at 14,140, up 9 points, and spurted to a high of 14,153. The index, however, soon slipped into the negative zone due to lack of buying interest at higher levels.

Persistent selling mainly in banking and FMCG stocks saw the index slide to lower levels as the day progressed. The index touched a low of 13,968 -- down 185 points from the day's high.

The Sensex finally ended with a loss of 128 points at 14,003. NSE Nifty ended at 4,113, down 42 points.

The BSE Bankex, FMCG and Oil and Gas indices were down around 1% each at 7369, 1773 and 7397, respectively.

The market breadth was negative -- out of 2,535 stocks traded, 1,374 declined, 1,070 advanced and 91 were unchanged on Wednesday.

Movers and Shakers

SBI [Get Quote] tumbled over 3% to Rs 1,289. Reliance Communications [Get Quote] (RCom) shed 2.5% at Rs 486. HLL [Get Quote] and Larsen & Toubro plunged nearly 2% each to Rs 186 and Rs 1,871, respectively.

HDFC [Get Quote] dropped 1.7% to Rs 1,751. Wipro [Get Quote], Reliance, Hero Honda and Ranbaxy [Get Quote] slipped 1.5% each to Rs 531, Rs 1,673, Rs 695 and Rs 363, respectively. Gujarat Ambuja [Get Quote] and Tata Steel [Get Quote] have declined 1.3% each to Rs 109 and Rs 595, respectively.

ACC, Bharti Airtel [Get Quote], Grasim [Get Quote], ITC and TCS [Get Quote] were down around 1% each to Rs 797, Rs 797, Rs 2,356, Rs 152 and Rs 1,203, respectively. Dr Reddy's surged 2.7% to Rs 628. Satyam [Get Quote] rallied 1.7% to Rs 486.

Most Active Counters

Debutant Time Technoplast topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 636.30 crore followed by Reliance (Rs 148 crore), Nestle [Get Quote] (Rs 103.65 crore), Indiabulls [Get Quote] Real (Rs 100.75 crore) and SBI (Rs 82 crore).

Time Technoplast, also, led the volume chart with trades of around 1.33 crore shares followed by G V Films [Get Quote] (81.25 lakh), IFCI (66.40 lakh), Reliance Natural [Get Quote] (61.60 lakh) and Dabur [Get Quote] (51.60 lakh).