Sensex drops 109 points on FII selling

MUMBAI, SEPT. 15. Equities suffered a sharp setback that pushed the Sensex down by a whopping 109.54 points at close on the Bombay Stock Exchange today in the wake of heavy bull unloading coupled with selling pressure from foreign institutional investors.

Ignoring the good news like announcement of strategic global alliance between two IT giants Infosys Technologies and Microsoft Corporation of the U.S., bulls and FIIs resorted to heavy offerings after midsession pulling down high priced stocks from infotech, communication and entertainment (ICE) sectors.

Operators who were having long positions in most of the frontline counters, preferred to wind up their positions at the last day of the current settlement.

Reflecting the onslaught on the index-based scrips of which 27 showed sharp to moderate falls, the BSE sensitive index opened at 4666.47 and gradually moved downwards to the day's low of 4539.35 before closing at 4562.38 against yesterday's close of 4671.92, showing a net loss of 109.54 points or 2.34 per cent.

The BSE-100 index also dipped by 77.41 points to 2297.93 from 2375.34. The FIIs were heavy sellers in Wipro, SSI, Aptech, Pentamedia, Zee Telefilms, Digital Equipment, Himachal Futuristic and few others.

Majority of the pharma shares continued to reel under pressure. Burroughs Welcome, Cipla, Dr. Reddy, German Remedies, E-Merck, Glaxo, Nicholas Piramal, Novartis, Ranbaxy, Rhone Poulenc, Sun Pharma and Wockhardt were the most to bear the brunt of large scale offloading.

- PTI

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Section  : Business
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