The Sensex opened with a negative gap of 211 points at 15,852 owing to weakness in global markets.

The index touched a day's low of 15,709 in morning trades, it recovered partially and touched a day's high of 15,985 due to buying in oil & gas sector.

The index finally ended with a loss of 100 points at 15,962.

The market breadth was negative - out of 2,722 stocks traded, 1,817 declined, 847 advanced and 58 were unchanged on Tuesday.

The NSE Nifty settled with a loss of 24 points at 4,716.

INDEX SHAKERS. . .

Bharti Airtel [Get Quote] tumbled 4.1% to Rs 841. Reliance Infrastructure plunged 3.9% to Rs 1,125.

Satyam [Get Quote] declined 3.6% to Rs 500. BHEL and HDFC [Get Quote] slipped around 3% each to Rs 1,548 and Rs 2,459, respectively.

Jaiprakash Associates [Get Quote] dipped 2.6% to Rs 206. Larsen & Toubro lost 2.3% to Rs 2,849.

HDFC Bank dropped 1.8% to Rs 1,282. Infosys [Get Quote] was down 1.4% at Rs 1,922.

NTPC, Tata Steel [Get Quote] and Grasim [Get Quote] were the other major losers, down 0.7% each at Rs 160, Rs 862 and Rs 2,194, respectively.

. . .AND THE MOVERS

ACC gained 3.7% to Rs 649. Ranbaxy [Get Quote] moved up 3% at Rs 530.

DLF and Wipro [Get Quote] advanced 2.6% each to Rs 582 and Rs 508, respectively.

Reliance was up 2.2% to Rs 2,407. Tata Motors [Get Quote] and Cipla added 1.3% each to Rs 570 and Rs 210, respectively.

Hindalco [Get Quote] and ONGC [Get Quote] were up 1.1% each at Rs 184 and Rs 842, respectively.

MOST ACTIVE COUNTERS

Reliance led the value chart with a turnover of Rs 279.09 crore followed by Reliance Capital [Get Quote] (Rs 211.80 crore), Essar Oil [Get Quote] (Rs 165.60 crore), Reliance Petroleum [Get Quote] (Rs 155.41 crore) and IFCI (Rs 128.42 crore).

IFCI topped the volume chart with trades of around 2.14 crore shares followed by Ispat Industries [Get Quote] (1.45 crore), Aishwarya Telecom (1.12 crore), Chambal Fertilisers (98 lakh) and Reliance Natural Resources [Get Quote] (96 lakh).