From new highs to sharp decline in noon trades

01 February 2006

Indices opened on a strong note today, continuing from where they stopped yesterday. The Sensex opened at a new lifetime intra-day high and went very close to the 10,000 mark in early trades.

However, weakness across major Asian markets triggered a decline and by mid-morning the indices slipped into the red.

Strong gains in select pharma, metal and engineering stocks saw the markets claw back to positive territory and by early afternoon the Sensex had gone past its early highs.

The Sensex saw a new lifetime intra-day high of 9994 and the Nifty posted a new high of 3011 today

The markets saw a sharp sell off later in the afternoon as some of the frontline stocks came under severe selling pressure. The Sensex was down nearly 100 points at one point and the Nifty gave up close to 40 points from yesterday's close.