Sensex down 11 points at 15,604

Backed by firm US cues the Sensex opened with a positive gap of 100 points at 15,714. Fresh buying, thereafter, saw the index rally to a high of 15,825 -- just 43 points shy of an all-time high.

Selling emerged in noon deals following weakness in the European markets as a result of which the index began to pare gains. Sustained selling saw the index slip into red to a low of 15,568 - down 257 points from the day's high.

The Sensex finally ended with a marginal loss of 10 points at 15,604. The NSE Nifty lost 11 points to close at 4,518.

The market breadth was negative - out of 2,761 stocks traded, 1,744 declined, 964 advanced and 53 were unchanged on Friday.

INDEX MOVERS...

ICICI Bank surged 2.6% to Rs 907. HDFC Bank has added 1.3% to Rs 1,229.

Larsen & Toubro was up nearly 1% at Rs 2,592.

AND THE SHAKERS....

NTPC and Maruti plunged around 3% each to Rs 186 and Rs 866,

respectively. ACC shed 2% to Rs 1,107.

Cipla and Bajaj Auto slipped 1.7% each to Rs 172 and Rs 2,377, respectively.

Wipro and Hindustan Unilever declined 1.5% each to Rs 450 and Rs 212, respectively.

Reliance Communications, SBI and Grasim were down 1.3% each to Rs 543, Rs 1,654 and Rs 3,224, respectively.

Mahindra & Mahindra and Bharti Airtel were the other major losers.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Debutant Iwind Energy topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 360 crore followed by IDFC (Rs 350 crore), India Cements (Rs 222.60 crore), Reliance (Rs 139.50 crore) and India Infoline (Rs 132.40 crore).

Iwind Energy led the volume chart with trades of around four crore shares followed by IDFC (2.73 crore), Ispat Industries (2.41 crore), IFCI (1.46 crore) and IKF Technologies (1.16 crore).