Our Bureau

Mumbai , Aug 23

IT has been the fourth consecutive day of losses at the bourses, but it may not all be over yet.

Despite the fact that trading on Tuesday started confidently, profit-booking across the market led to the indices nose-diving by close of trade. With a 134.61-point drop, the Sensex shed 1.74 per cent on Tuesday to close at 7,615.99.

The Nifty traced a similar pattern, losing 41.75 points to end at 2,326.10, registering a slip of 1.76 per cent.

Market participants, who have been anticipating corrections for over eight weeks now, are viewing this as a positive development. Global markets also had a poor run today, with most indices across Asia and Europe closing in the red.

Now that the liquidity-led momentum is tapering off, domestic bourses are weighing in global concerns about earnings growth and oil prices, said an analyst.

Mr Rajesh Jain, CEO of Pranav Securities, said that markets could slip further by 400-800 points.

"It would be interesting to see how Thursday (when the rollover of the futures and options segment takes place) pans out. We would be able to assess further market trends from this."

FIIs, who were the vanguards of the market for the last few months, have reduced their inflows to a trickle now. In the euphoria of increased dollar spending in the bourses, business fundamentals - including record high oil prices - were ignored. "The realities that we had buried our heads from would catch up with us now," a broker said.

Aggregate net investment by FIIs for the last four days of trade was only Rs 135.7 crore, significantly down from the Rs 600-1,000 crore daily net inflows that the markets saw even as recently as the beginning of this month.

"The current decline in the market will start from the large caps and trickle down to mid-cap and small-cap counters. We are advising our investors not to rush in to buy in the current market conditions. It is prudent to wait for the market to find a new level," Mr Jain said.

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