The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 53 points at 16,270. After the initial volatility the index advanced to a high of 16,310 in early morning trades.

The index, however, could not hold gains and slipped into the negative zone. Selective profit taking saw the index touch a low of 16,010 - down 300 points from the day's high. The Sensex finally ended with a loss of 131 points at 16,087.

The market breadth was fairly positive - out of 2,760 stocks traded, 1,722 advanced, 990 declined and 48 were unchanged on Wednesday.

The NSE Nifty slipped 49 points to end at 4,829.

Index shakers

Hindustan Unilever and ICICI Bank plunged over 4% each to Rs 234 and Rs 843, respectively.

Bharti Airtel shed 3.7% at Rs 803. DLF, Jaiprakash Associates and BHEL dropped around 3% each to Rs 658, Rs 226 and Rs 1,955, respectively.

Reliance Communications, Cipla and Ambuja Cements shed around 2% each to Rs 526, Rs 206 and Rs 122,

respectively.

SBI and NTPC slipped around 1.5% each to Rs 1,714 and Rs 197, respectively. Wipro declined 1.3% to Rs 429.

ONGC was down over 1% at Rs 1,063.

And the movers

Tata Steel surged nearly 4% to Rs 658. HDFC moved up 2.7% to Rs 2,660.

ITC gained 2% at Rs 195. HDFC Bank advanced 1.6% to Rs 1,441.

Value and volume toppers

Reliance Capital topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 385.50 crore followed by Axis Bank (Rs 378.50 crore), Indiabulls (Rs 261 crore), GSS America (Rs 245 crore) and Reliance (Rs 186.50 crore).

Ispat Industries led the volume chart with trades of around 1.87 crore shares followed by Reliance Natural Resources (1.58 crore), Reliance Petroleum (80.60 lakh), IFCI (75.80 lakh) and Essar Oil (72.50 lakh).