The Sensex opened 52 points higher at 16,959 due to positive closing in the US markets, the index touched a high of 17,054 - up 147 points from the previous close.

The index, however, could not hold gains and soon slipped into the negative zone. The index dropped to a low of 16,626 - down 428 points from the day's high in late noon deals. The Sensex finally ended with a loss of 257 points at 16,650.

The market breadth was negative - out of 2,790 stocks traded, 796 advanced, 1,922 declined and 72 were unchanged on Friday.

The NSE Nifty settled with a loss of 79 points at 4,946 points.

The Shakers. . .

ITC plunged 4.2% to Rs 214. Tata Motors [Get Quote] tumbled 3.6% to Rs 638.

Jaiprakash Associates [Get Quote] declined 3.4% to Rs 238, and Larsen & Toubro slipped 2.5% to Rs 2,845.

Reliance Infrastructure, ONGC [Get Quote], TCS [Get Quote] and Reliance were down 2.4% each to Rs 1,291, Rs 902, Rs 934 and Rs 2,555, respectively.

Hindalco [Get Quote] was down over over 2.3% to Rs 193.

Reliance Communications [Get Quote], SBI [Get Quote] and Ambuja Cements dropped 2.1% each to Rs 572, Rs 1,573 and Rs 102, respectively.

ICICI Bank [Get Quote] and ACC shed 1.9% to Rs 864 and Rs 667, respectively.

Infosys [Get Quote] and DLF slipped 1.8% each to Rs 1,826 and Rs 610, respectively.

Maruti [Get Quote], Wipro [Get Quote], Satyam [Get Quote] and Tata Steel [Get Quote] were the other major losers today.

...And The Movers

Bharti Airtel [Get Quote] surged 2.3% to Rs 837, while HDFC [Get Quote] gained 2% to Rs 2,678.

Hindustan Unilever and HDFC Bank added 0.3% each to Rs 235 and Rs 1,383, respectively.

Most Active Counters

Reliance Capital [Get Quote] led the value chart with a turnover of Rs 283.43 crore followed by Cairn India [Get Quote] (Rs 175.73 crore), Reliance (Rs 151.06 crore), Reliance Power (Rs 138.29 crore) and Ispat (Rs 126.68 crore).

Ispat topped the volume chart with trades of around 3.57 crore shares followed by  IFCI (1.68 crore), Aishwarya Telecom (1.12 crore), Idea Cellular [Get Quote] (92 lakh) and Reliance Natural Resources [Get Quote] (81 lakh).