The Sensex opened 24 points higher at 13,717, but soon slipped into the negative zone. Persistent selling technology and realty stocks saw the index slide to a low of 13,431 - down 286 points from the day's high.

However, some value buying at lower levels helped the index recover some of its losses towards the close. The Sensex finally ended with a loss of 145 points at 13,547.

The BSE IT and Realty indices shed 2% each at 3,348 and 3,840, respectively.

The market breadth was fairly negative - out of 2,665 stocks traded, 1,687 declined and 901 advanced on Thursday.

INDEX SHAKERS. . .

Wipro [Get Quote] and Ranbaxy [Get Quote] plunged nearly 5% each to Rs 353 and Rs 296, respectively.

Hindalco [Get Quote] slumped 4% to Rs 105. Grasim [Get Quote] and TCS [Get Quote] tumbled around 3.5% each to Rs 1,867 and Rs 690, respectively.

DLF and ACC slipped nearly 3% each to Rs 389 and Rs 611, respectively.

Bharti Airtel [Get Quote], Tata Power [Get Quote] and ITC shed 2.5% each at Rs 791, Rs 999 and Rs 188, respectively.

Sterlite dropped over 2% to Rs 477. BHEL, Satyam [Get Quote] and SBI [Get Quote] declined nearly 2% each to Rs 1,633, Rs 328 and Rs 1,494, respectively.

Reliance Communications [Get Quote], Reliance Infrastrucutre and Infosys [Get Quote] were down over 1% each at Rs 365, Rs 878 and Rs 1,505, respectively.

. . .AND THE MOVER

HDFC Bank [Get Quote] advanced over 1% to Rs 1,298.

MOST ACTIVE COUNTERS

Tata Steel [Get Quote] topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 548.50 crore followed by Reliance Capital [Get Quote] (Rs 355 crore), Reliance (Rs 287.50 crore), Akruti City (Rs 207.50 crore) and Austral Coke (Rs 188 crore).

Tata Steel also led the volume chart with trades of around 1.30 crore shares followed by Reliance Natural Resources [Get Quote] (89.80 lakh), IFCI (72.90 lakh), Austral Coke (71.95 lakh) and Sesa Goa [Get Quote] (54.90 lakh).