Forex

The Sensex opened nearly flat at 13,791 - down 11 points from the previous close. Fresh buying in morning trades saw the index advance to a high of 13,872.

The index, however, could not hold gains as persistent selling in banking, cement and realty stocks dragged the index into the negative zone. Heavy selling in the Reliance counter in late noon trades saw the index slide to a low of 13,405 - down 467 points from the day's high.

The Sensex finally ended with a loss of 341 points at 13,462. In the process, the index today ended the first half of 2008 with a massive loss of 6,825 points (33.6%).

The market breadth was fairly negative - out of 2,692 stocks traded, 2,107 declined, 543 advanced and 42 were unchanged on Monday.The NSE Nifty shed 96 points to end at 4,041.