The Sensex opened with a negative gap of 137 points at 15,950 on the back of weak cues from the global markets. Weakness in the first half of the day saw the index slip to a low of 15,869.
The index, however, recovered and rebouned into the positive zone in mid-noon trades and touched a high of 16,111 - up 242 points from the day's low. The Sensex, however, could not hold gains and slipped back into red to finish with a loss of 71 points at 16,016.
The market breadth was marginally positive - out of 2,774 stocks traded, 1,490 advanced, 1,223 declined and 61 were unchanged on Thursday.
The NSE Nifty ended almost unchanged at 4,830 - up a point.
Index shakers
Tata Motors dropped 3.5% to close at Rs 655 as analysts raised fears of a possible slowdown in earnings following the company's buy of Jaguar Land Rover brands from Ford for $2.3 billion.
Satyam plunged 4.4% to Rs 395. SBI and Infosys tumbled 3.7% each to Rs 1,650 and Rs 1,441, respectively.
TCS shed 3% at Rs 853. Ranbaxy and Larsen & Toubro slipped 2.7% each to Rs 436 and Rs 2,964,
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