The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 70 points at 15,535, and moved up to a high of 15,581 in morning trades. Profit-taking in noon deals saw the index slip into red and exhibit range-bound movement for most of the day.

The Sensex attempted to climb back to the day's high in late noon deals, but profit-taking saw the index tumble to a low of 15,407 -- down 174 points from the day's high. The Sensex finally ended with a marginal loss of 19 points at 15,446. The NSE Nifty ended at 4,476, down 3 points.

The index, thus, broke its 8-day rally after gaining 1,300 points.

The market breadth was positive - out of 2,793 stocks traded, 1,435 advanced, 1,299 declined and 59 were unchanged on Wednesday.

Index Movers...

NTPC and Cipla gained around 2% each to Rs 185 and Rs 183, respectively.

Wipro [Get Quote] advanced 1.5% to Rs 473. Ambuja Cements moved up 1.3% to Rs 138.

ICICI Bank [Get Quote], Grasim [Get Quote], Tata Motors [Get Quote] and Bajaj Auto [Get Quote] were up around 1% each at Rs 915, Rs 3,056, Rs 698 and Rs 2,307, respectively.

...And The Shakers

Maruti [Get Quote] shed 2.3% to Rs 873. Ranbaxy [Get Quote] slipped 1.7% to Rs 400.

ACC, Larsen & Toubro and Bharti Airtel [Get Quote] declined 1.3% each to Rs 1,082, Rs 2,589 and Rs 849, respectively.

HDFC [Get Quote], SBI [Get Quote] and BHEL were down around 1% each at Rs 2,037, Rs 1,594 and Rs 1,893, respectively.

Value and Volume Toppers

Everonn Systems topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 135 crore followed by Reliance (Rs 129.30 crore), Take Solutions (Rs 125 crore), Lakshmi Machines Works (Rs 124.40 crore), and Reliance Energy [Get Quote] (Rs 117.60 crore).

Nagarjuna Fertilisers led the volumes chart with trades of around 1.52 crore shares followed by IFCI (1.04 crore), IKF Technologies [Get Quote] (97 lakh), Tata Tele (79.70 lakh) and Reliance Natural [Get Quote] (79 lakh).