Sensex down on selling pressure

MUMBAI, NOV. 13. Equities suffered a sharp setback, bringing the Sensex tumbling down by about 121 points on the opening day of the new account on the Bombay Stock Exchange today in the wake of selling pressure from speculators.

Select old economy counters, however, attracted good investment enquiries and closed with impressive gains in an otherwise lacklustre activity and near absence of foreign institutional investors and domestic institutions.

In keeping with indications of a weak start following the lower close at the last weekend on the National Stock Exchange, the BSE sensitive index opened with a big downside gap at 3842.63 and later moved in a narrow range of 3863.35 and 3797.50 before closing at 3820.08 against last Friday's close of 3941.13, netting a loss of 121.05 points or 3.07 per cent. The BSE-100 index also nosedived by 73.64 points to 1940.38 from 2014.02.

The dramatic day-to-day developments in the U.S. presidential elections that created uncertainty in global markets, almost forced operators to ignore the increased net purchases by foreign institutional investors which had made net investments in the current month.

The sharp fall by 171.36 points in the tech-focussed Nasdaq last weekend and its weak futures opening this afternoon also impacted the sentiment negatively.

Dealers said Southeast Asian markets such as Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo witnessed a stocks meltdown in line with investors' withdrawal worldwide, unnerved by the U.S. presidential election limbo.

In the specified group, 106 shares including 23 index based ones registered sharp falls while 30 others showed handsome gains.

The BSE-200 and the Dollex were quoted down at 415.68 and 148 against 430.32 and 153.28 respectively.

- PTI

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Section  : Business
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