Mirroring weakness in the global markets, the Sensex opened with a negative gap of 83 points at 15,712. A heavy bout of selling in noon trades saw the index tumble to a low of 15,573 - down 222 points from yesterday's close. Fresh buying towards the end saw the index cut the loss and eventually settle at 15,699 - down 96 points.

The BSE FMCG index, thanks to ITC, zoomed nearly 4% to 1915. The BSE Realty index dropped 3% to 8132, and the Auto index slipped 2% to 5023. The Metal index shed 1.7% to 12,161.

Declines beat advances 2:1, i.e two declining shares for every advancing stock. Out of 2,685 stocks traded, 1,753 declined, 862 advanced and 70 were unchanged today.

INDEX SHAKERS....

Satyam slumped 6% to Rs 487. TCS shed 2% to Rs 1,149, and Wipro was down 1.5% at Rs 499.

Ambuja Cements plunged 4.5% to Rs 128, and ACC dropped 4.2% to Rs 1,071. Grasim declined over 1% to Rs 2,985.

Bajaj Auto shed nearly 4% to Rs 2,355. Tata Motors tumbled nearly 3% to Rs 726, and Mahindra & Mahindra declined 1.8% to Rs 782. Maruti slipped over 1% to Rs 810.

Larsen & Toubro declined 3.5% to Rs 2,573. BHEL shed 2.5% to Rs 1,790. ICICI Bank dropped over 1% to Rs 959.

Reliance Communications slipped 1.8% to Rs 567. Hindalco and Tata Steel were down 1.6% each at Rs 183 and Rs 710, respectively.

Dr.Reddy's, Cipla and Ranbaxy declined 1% each to Rs 666, Rs 186 and Rs 341, respectively.

....AND THE MOVERS

ITC zoomed 9% to Rs 166. NTPC soared 2.5% to Rs 168, and ONGC surged 2% to Rs 934.

Bharti Airtel advanced 1.5% to Rs 947, and Hindustan Unilever gained 1% at Rs 202.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Reliance Energy topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 317.50 crore followed by debutant Allied Digital (Rs 300.50 crore), HDIL (Rs 231.50 crore), Indiabulls Real Estate (Rs 156.40 crore) and GMR Infrastructure (Rs 147.40 crore).

IFCI led the volume chart with trades of around 1.57 crore shares followed by Bellary Steel (1.44 crore), Allied Digital (88.30 lakh), Spice Tele (71.20 lakh) and Suryachakra Power (61 lakh).