The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 51 points at 17,810. After moving a notch higher, the index slipped into negative zone and tumbled to a low of 17,418 - down 392 points from day's open in the first hour of trade today.

Fresh buying in frontline stocks saw the index stage a smart recovery, and rallied to a high of 18,009 - up 591 points from the day's low.

Volatility towards the close due to the expiry of the January series of futures & options saw the index settle with a loss of 110 points at 17,649. The NSE Nifty ended 30 points lower at 5137.

The BSE market breadth was fairly negative - out of 2,792 stocks traded, 1,775 declined, 975 advanced and 42 were unchanged today.

INDEX SHAKERS...

Hindalco [Get Quote] and DLF plunged nearly 6% each to Rs 166 and Rs 813, respectively.

ICICI Bank [Get Quote] and Mahindra & Mahindra tumbled over 3% each to Rs 1,146 and Rs 669, respectively.

SBI [Get Quote] shed 2.6% at Rs 2,162, and ITC dropped 2.2% to Rs 195.

NTPC and ACC slipped nearly 2% each to Rs 198 and Rs 783, respectively.

HDFC [Get Quote] and Reliance Communications [Get Quote] declined 1.7% each to Rs 2,843 and Rs 602, respectively.

...AND THE MOVERS

Hindustan Unilever (HUL) soared 5% to Rs 207. Bajaj Auto [Get Quote] surged nearly 4% to Rs 2,356.

HDFC Bank rallied 2.4% to Rs 1,568. ONGC [Get Quote] gained 2% at Rs 988.

Tata Motors [Get Quote], Bharti Airtel [Get Quote] and Tata Steel [Get Quote] advanced nearly 1.5% each to Rs 706, Rs 864 and Rs 734, respectively.

TCS [Get Quote] and Ambuja Cements were up over 1% each at Rs 875 and Rs 120, respectively.

Major Gainers			Major Losers
Name	Close	% Chg	Name	Close	% Chg
Pyramid Saimira	404.75	18.6	IPRUFMP36A D	13.30	14.5
U P Hotels [Get Quote]	395.00	16.7	Bhushan Steel [Get Quote]	1,116.10	13.7
Mac Charles	274.05	15.4	Camson Bio	158.00	13.0
Aro Granite	111.80	14.9	Aurobindo Pharma [Get Quote]	294.40	11.5
Honeywell [Get Quote] Auto	2,023.25	14.6	Global Vect	111.85	10.5
(Close = Stock pirce at the end of day in Rs)

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 304 crore followed by Reliance Natural Resources [Get Quote] (Rs 289 crore), Reliance Energy [Get Quote] (Rs 236.20 crore), Reliance Petroleum [Get Quote] (Rs 222.75 crore) and Essar Oil [Get Quote] (Rs 211 crore).

Reliance Natural Resources led the volume chart with trades of around 2.12 crore shares followed by Ispat Industries [Get Quote] (1.47 crore), Reliance Petroleum (1.38 crore), Essar Oil (92.40 lakh) and IFCI (88.80 lakh).