Sensex drops 78 points

MUMBAI, JAN. 10. A fresh wave of selling in Infosys Technologies and Hindustan Lever pulled down Sensex by nearly 78 points to close below the 4070-support level on the Bombay Stock Exchange today.

Led by fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) giant, Hindustan Lever, majority of the index heavyweights such as BHEL, ACC, HPCL, ITC, MTNL Reliance and Telco suffered a severe beating on large scale offloading leading to a steep fall in the Sensex.

IT bellwether, Infosys dropped further despite good third quarter performance that was up to market expectations, while Satyam computer reversed its uptrend and declined on profit-taking partly aiding the Sensex downslide.

Other software counters closed with moderate gains or losses on alternate bouts of buying and selling. Media shares which were battered for the last two days, however, recovered marginally on good buying support at lower levels. Reflecting the trend, the BSE-30 share sensitive index opened firm at 4151.58 and touched a high of 4155.86 mainly influenced by a smart recovery of over 45 points in the Nasdaq composite index yesterday.

However, a heavy sell-off after opening session brought down the Sensex to the day's low of 4035.44 before closing at 4047.64 against yesterday's close of 4125.31, netting a big loss of 77.67 points or 1.88 per cent. The BSE-100 index also dipped by 25.73 points to 2097.57 from 4125.31.

- PTI

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Section  : Business
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