The Sensex opened a tad (three points) higher at 14,212, but soon slipped into negative zone on heavy selling in cement stocks.

Unabated selling in Dr.Reddy's, SBI and the cement counters saw the index drop to a low of 14,026 before settling with a loss of 168 points at 14,041.

The BSE Bankex tumbled over 2% to 7315. The Healthcare index shed 1.7% to 8898. The FMCG, Metal and PSU indices were down around 1% each at 1954, 8898 and 6150, respectively.

Losers beat gainers 2:1 - out of 2,679 stocks traded, 1,721 stocks declined, 898 stocks moved up and 60 were unchanged today.

Index Movers & Shakers

Cement stocks were the major losers today following the government's decision to abolish customs duty on ordinary portland cement. ACC plunged over 7% (Rs 79) to Rs 1,037. Gujarat Ambuja slumped 6.7% (Rs 10) to Rs 137. Grasim shed 3% (Rs 89) to Rs 2,805.

Dr.Reddy's tumbled 5% (Rs 40) to Rs 770. SBI slipped over 4% to Rs 1,174.

HDFC Bank and NTPC were down around 2.5% each to Rs 1,030 and Rs 135, respectively.

Maruti dropped 2% to Rs 919. Tata Motors, Tata Steel and Reliance Communications declined 1.5% each to Rs 950, Rs 465 and Rs 441, respectively.

Ranbaxy, ICICI Bank, ITC and Larsen & Toubro were down over 1% each to Rs 399, Rs 965, Rs 177 and Rs 1,533, respectively.

Bharti was a outstanding gainer today. The stock bucked the overall weakness, and finished with a gain of 2% at Rs 689.

Value & Volume Toppers

Debutant Shree Ashtavinayak topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 144.30 crore followed by Tech Mahindra (Rs 141.40 crore), Pyramid Saimira (Rs 140.35 crore), Phoenix Mills (Rs 133.55 crore) and SBI (Rs 115.90 crore).

IFCI led the volume chart with trades of around 1.96 crore shares followed by Reliance Natural Resources (1.30 crore), Harig Cranks (1.15 crore), Silverline (62.35 lakh) and Shree Ashtavinayak (59.85 lakh).