Sensex yields 45 points to dip below 3000 mark

MUMBAI, SEPT. 13. Heavy sell-off by foreign funds once again pressured equities, particularly old economy stocks that lost early gains and even registered moderate losses at close, bringing the Sensex down by another 45 points on the Bombay Stock Exchange today.

A leading foreign fund, Morgan Stanley, which is believed to have suffered heavy losses from Tuesday's terrorist attack on the U.S., was reportedly all round seller during the second half of the session.

Initially, the BSE benchmark 30-share index showed signs of recovery rising to the intra-day high of 3068.49 in keeping with encouraging trends in the European markets as well as Southeast Asian markets this morning. However, a sudden selling spree blocked the upsurge as key cyclicals such as Grasim, Reliance Industries, L&T, MTNL, ITC, BHEL, ACC and others suffered a sharp setback.

The BSE barometer later gradually moved downwards to close below 3000 level at 2987.50 against yesterday's close of 3032.71, netting a fall of 45.21 points or 1.49 per cent. The BSE-100 index also finished lower by 17.67 points at 1423.02 against 1440.69.

Market sources felt that the terrorist attack would adversely affect the inflow of foreign investments at least for a short period.

Foreign institutional investors seemed to be cautious watching the reaction from the U.S. where the New York stock market and the Nasdaq were closed till Thursday.

The Sensex dropped by 244.10 points or 7.55 per cent in the last seven successive days.

In the specified group, 89 including 22 index-based scrips registered sharp to moderate losses while 82 others closed with gains.

The BSE-200 and the Dollex-200 were quoted down at 311.39 and 109.05 against 314.62 and 110.44 respectively. The BSE-500 declined by 9.12 points to 915.84 from 924.96. The Dollex-30 dropped by 9.02 points to 515.95 from 524.95.

The volume of business was pegged at Rs. 1,100.15 crores against Rs. 1,086.69 crores. Infosys Technologies remained the most active scrip with a turnover of Rs. 170.51 crores followed by Ranbaxy (Rs. 151.66 crores), Wipro (Rs. 130.84 crores), Digital Equipment (Rs. 121.29 crores) and Satyam Computer (Rs. 92.12 crores).

- PTI

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