It turned out to be an extremely volatile day.
After opening with a positive gap of 32 points 8,963, the Sensex zoomed to a high of 9,034 in morning deals.
Profit-taking at higher levels saw the index slip into the red by early noon deals. Sustained selling saw the index plunge to a low of 8,769 - an intra-day swing of 265 points.
The Sensex finally closed with a loss of 142 points (1.6%) at 8,789.
The Nifty lost 46 points to close at 2,652.
Wipro slumped over 4% (Rs 20) to Rs 422. Satyam dropped 3% (Rs 21) to Rs 653. Infosys declined 1.8% (Rs 48) to Rs 2,684. TCS was down 1.6% (Rs 24) at Rs 1,519.
HLL dropped 3% (Rs 6) to Rs 182. SBI slipped over 2% (Rs 20) to Rs 896. While ONGC was down 1.9% (Rs 20) at Rs 1,030, Reliance was down 1.8% (Rs 15) at Rs 833.
Tata Motors declined over 3% (Rs 20) to Rs 556. Bajaj was down Rs 59 at Rs 2,011, and Hero Honda was down Rs 19 at Rs 832.
Cipla slipped 3% (Rs 12) to Rs 398. Dr. Reddy's and Ranbaxy also declined.
HDFC Bank was up Rs 5 at Rs 688. Tata Steel, HDFC, BHEL, ICICI Bank and Grasim finished with marginal gains today.
