The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 144 points at 15,914 on the back of positive close from global markets, and soon touched a day's high of 15,971 in early morning trades.

The index could not hold the gains and fell sharply in late noon deals to touch a day's low of 15,526 - down 445 points from day's high.

The Sensex finally ended with loss of 198 points at 15,572.

The market breadth was negative - out of 2,717 stocks traded, 1,524 declined, 1,125 advanced and 68 were unchanged on Friday.

The NSE Nifty ended with a loss of 49 points at 4,628.

Index Shakers. . .

Wipro [Get Quote] tumbled 4.4% to Rs 505. ITC plunged 4.1% to Rs 213.

Ranbaxy [Get Quote] and Hindalco [Get Quote] lost 3.5% to Rs 507 and Rs 176, respectively. DLF was down 3.4% to Rs 520.

Reliance Infrastructure slipped 2.7% at Rs 1,100. TCS [Get Quote] and Bharti declined 2.3% each to Rs 960 and Rs 802, respectively.

Jaiprakash Associated dropped 2.2% at Rs 201, while Tata Steel [Get Quote] dipped 2.1% to Rs 823.

HDFC [Get Quote] and ACC declined 1.9% each to Rs 2,347 and Rs 628, respectively.

BHEL and Cipla were down 1.6% each at Rs 1,421 and Rs 207, respectively.

ONGC [Get Quote] shed 1.5% to Rs 938. Larsen & Toubro and SBI [Get Quote] dropped 1.4% each at Rs 2,682 and Rs 1,335, respectively.

ICICI Bank [Get Quote], Maruti [Get Quote] and HUL were the other major losers.

. . .And The Movers

Mahindra & Mahindra gained 3.5% to Rs 582. Tata Motors [Get Quote] advanced 1.4% to Rs 540.

Grasim [Get Quote] and Infosys [Get Quote] added 0.7% each at Rs 2,263 and Rs 1,993, respectively.

Most Active Counters

Reliance led the value chart with a turnover of Rs 385.35 crore followed by Reliance Capital [Get Quote] (Rs 214.38 crore), Cairn India [Get Quote] (Rs 208.63 crore), Gokul Refoils (Rs 197.32 crore) and Anu's Laboratories (Rs 175.14 crore).

IFCI topped the volume chart with trades of around 1.63 crore shares followed by SpiceJet (1.16 crore), Chambal Fertilisers (1 crore), Gokul Refoils (97 lakh) and Ispat Industries [Get Quote] (90 lakh).