Mirroring solid gains in world markets, the Sensex opened with a positive gap of 79 points at 14,242, and soon spurted to a high of 14,282. The upmove was capped owing to weakness in technology sector.

As selling spread to other counters, the index slipped into red in noon trades. Towards the close the index dropped to a low of 14,057 -- down 227 points from the day's high. The Sensex finally ended with a loss of 83 points at 14,080. NSE Nifty ended at 4,147, down 24 points.

On Shaky Ground

Ranbaxy [Get Quote] and Hero Honda tumbled nearly 4% each to Rs 359 and Rs 654, respectively. Tata Steel [Get Quote] dropped nearly 2% to Rs 589.

HDFC Bank [Get Quote] shed 1.7% to Rs 1,090. TCS [Get Quote], Wipro [Get Quote] and HDFC slipped around 1.5% each to Rs 1,167, Rs 523 and Rs 1,760, respectively.

Bajaj Auto [Get Quote] and Satyam [Get Quote] declined 1.3% each to Rs 2,081 and Rs 477, respectively.

Larsen and Toubro, Infosys [Get Quote], Reliance Communications [Get Quote], NTPC and Tata Motors [Get Quote] were the other major losers.

ICICI Bank [Get Quote], however, advanced 1% to Rs 918.

Value and Volume Toppers

Time Technoplast topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 217 crore followed by Nestle [Get Quote] (Rs 123 crore), Reliance (Rs 103 crore), Divi's Lab (Rs 98 crore) and debutant Gory Polyfilms (Rs 96.75 crore).

IKF Technologies [Get Quote] led the volume chart with trades of around 1.90 crore shares followed by Glory Polyfilms (1.57 crore), IFCI (1.55 crore), Reliance Natural [Get Quote] (77 lakh) and G V Films [Get Quote] (57.35 lakh).