The Sensex opened a tad higher at 15,770 - up 13 points - but slipped into negative zone soon on weak cues from Asian markets.
Aggressive profit-taking saw the index drop to a low of 15,479 - down 291 points from the day's open. The Sensex recouped some ground in late noon deals, and finally ended with a loss of 169 points at 15,588.
The market breadth was marginally positive - out of 2,671 stocks traded, 1,398 advanced and 1,205 declined on Tuesday.
The NSE Nifty settled 51 points lower at 4,710.
Index shakers
Larsen & Toubro declined over 5% to Rs 2,581. Wipro and Jaiprakash Associates dropped 4.5% each to Rs 414 and Rs 222, respectively.
Tata Steel slipped over 3% to Rs 656. Ranbaxy shed 2.7% at Rs 471, and Grasim dropped 2.5% to Rs 2,560.
NTPC, Infosys and Hindustan Unilever slipped over 2% each to Rs 187, Rs 1,461 and Rs 248, respectively.
Maruti declined nearly 2% to Rs 744. Mahindra & Mahindra and TCS dropped 1.7% each to Rs 603 and Rs 885, respectively.
And the movers
BHEL gained 4.7% to Rs 1,713. Bharti Airtel advanced over 1% to Rs 829.
ICICI Bank, HDFC and SBI also finished with gains on Tuesday.
Value and volume toppers
Orchid Chemicals topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 478 crore followed by BHEL (Rs 264 crore), Larsen & Toubro (Rs 226.70 crore), Reliance Power (Rs 207.50 crore) and Reliance Capital (Rs 204 crore).
Orchid Chemicals led the volume chart with trades of around 2.05 crore shares followed by Reliance Natural Resources (1.14 crore), Sita Shree Foods (1.07 crore), Indiabulls Securities (76.53 lakh) and Reliance Petroleum (71.30 lakh).
