The Sensex opened with a negative gap of 101 points at 8,600, and exhibited some volatility in early trades as the index touched a high of 8,739. Aggressive selling emerged thereafter and the index drifted lower as the day progressed. The selling pressure was so intense that the index broke the 8,000-mark and slumped to a low of 7,697 - down 1,042 points from the day's high. In the process, the index was down a whopping 63.7% (13,510 points) from its all-time peak of 21,207 touched in this January. Renewed buying, mainly in energy and realty stocks, helped the index cut losses and stage a smart recovery. The Sensex recovered 812 points from the day's low, and finally ended with a loss of 191 points at 8,509. The market breadth was extremely negative - out of 2,577 stocks traded so far, 2,016 declined, 519 advanced and 42 were unchanged today. INDEX MOVERS... Bharti Airtel and Reliance (RIL) surged almost 6% each to Rs 566 and Rs 1,075, respectively. Reliance Infrastructure rallied 4% to Rs 397. Reliance Communicaitons and Sterlite moved up around 3.5% each to Rs 200 and Rs 216, respectively. ICICI Bank gained 2% at Rs 316. TCS was up 1.4% at Rs 497. ...AND THE SHAKERS Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra slumped nearly 14% each to Rs 140 and Rs 248, respectively. Jaiprakash Associates tumbled over 10% to Rs 53, and Grasim plunged 9.5% to Rs 953. Tata Power and SBI shed 8.7% each at Rs 570 and Rs 1,057, respectively. Larsen & Toubro, HDFC and Hindalco dropped around 7% each to Rs 724, Rs 1,461 and Rs 40, respectively. ITC, Wipro, Hindustan Unilever and ONGC slipped around 6% each to Rs 149, Rs 220, Rs 211 and Rs 621, respectively. Tata Steel declined 5.5% to Rs 169, and Ranbaxy shed 4.7% at Rs 180. HDFC Bank and NTPC were down around 4% each at Rs 932 and Rs 126, respectively. DLF and Maruti were down nearly 3% each at Rs 198 and Rs 519, respectively. VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 358 crore followed by Reliance Capital (Rs 181.50 crore), SBI (Rs 175.50 crore), ICICI Bank (Rs 145.50 crore) and Unitech (Rs 109 crore). Unitech led the volume chart with trades of around 2.75 crore shares followed by Suzlon Energy (1.55 crore), IFCI (1.02 crore), Reliance Petroleum (1 crore) and Hindalco (83 lakh).

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