Activity was at a low ebb in view of the brief session that closed at 2 pm to accommodate "badla session" in the evening as tomorrow is a market holiday on account of "Dhanteras".

The BSE Sensitive index dropped from the intra-day high of 2895.57 to 2837.98 before closing at 2848.11, with a small loss of 9.16 points against yesterday's close of 2857.27. The BSE-100 index eased marginally by 7.75 to 1269.53 from previous close of 1277.28.

Brokers said that operators were not willing to enter into fresh commitments at the last trading session of the current settlement due to the prevailing situation in the market. Even encouraging performance by overseas markets, particularly South-East Asian stocks failed to attract support fromthe players at this stage.

The foreign funds have reported to have made small purchases in Hindustan Lever, Satyam Computers, Ranbaxy and Infosys Technologies. Domestic institutions also picked up shares of M&M, Hindalco and others.

The volume of business dropped to Rs 945.56 crore from Rs 1,135.88 crore. Satyam remained the most active scrip with a turnover of Rs 206.96 crore and it gained by Rs 3 to Rs 556 on short covering. ITC remained slightly better at Rs 693 from previous close of Rs 692.75. Zee Telefilms, Pentafour Software, SBI, Telco and Tisco remained subdued.

On the National Stock Exchange (NSE) pivotals started on a firm note and select scrips rose further on good buying by foreign investment investors (FIIs) and domestic funds and closed with fresh gains. The S&P CNX Nifty opened higher at 836.25 and rose further to close at 839.50, showing a fresh rise of 3.85 over the last close of 835.65. The total turnover was lower at Rs 1,370.40 crore. At the exchange, 360 shares advanced, 499 sharesfell and 101 shares held unchanged. 29 securities had hit their price bands.