Sensex halts four-day rally

The Sensex on Tuesday opened with a positive gap of 53 points at 16,552 following gains in global markets. The index surged to a high of 16,678 as market heavy-weight, Reliance, said it has discovered oil in the Cambay basin.

However, markets dropped sharply in noon trades and slumped to a low of 16,372 - down 306 points from the day's high. Pofit taking in Reliance and Larsen & Toubro were responsible for the fall.

Reversing trends of a solid surge in the last four trading sessions, the Sensex finally ended down 58 points at 16,441.

The Nifty ended at 4,882 -- down 17 points.

The BSE market breadth was negative. Out of 2,808 stocks traded 1,460 declined while 1,290 advanced.

INDEX SHAKERS. . .

Telecom stocks dipped. Bharti Airtel slipped 4.5% to Rs 294 while Reliance Communications shed 3% to Rs 169.

Hero Honda slumped 3.2% to Rs 1,500. Maruti Suzuki was down 2.7% at Rs 1,445.

DLF, ONGC, Hindustan Unilever and Hindalco dropped 2% each to Rs 378, Rs 1,137, Rs 265 and Rs 127, respectively.

The other losers in the Sensex today include Wipro, Reliance Infastructure, BHEL, Jaiprakash Associates and Tata Steel.

. . .AND MOVERS

Tata Motors and SBI gained over 2% each at Rs 594 and Rs 2,368, respectively.

Reliance managed to hold on to some of its early gains and ended at Rs 2,053 - up 1%.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS. . .

The BSE value chart was topped by Reliance with a turnover of Rs 282.19 crore, followed by SBI (Rs 238.81 crore), Educomp Solutions (Rs 217.97 crore), HDIL (Rs 158.57 crore) and DLF (Rs 148.88 crore).

GVK Power & Finance led by volume chart with trades of over 16.30 million shares, followed by Suzlon (13.69 million), Unitech (12.01 million), Reliance Natural Resources (11.59 million) and Austral Coke (11.14 million).