FIIs selling trigger 243 points intra-day fall on Sensex

Mumbai, Mar 8 (UNI) The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) 30 share sensitive index (Sensex) fell sharply by 243 points in intra-day trading to 10,497 points on the back of huge selling by the foreign instituional investors (FIIS) on March seven in the future and options (F&O) contracts.

After two weeks of bull run Sensex was trading lower since early morning but the FIIs selling triggered a huge fall in the afternoon, Sensex however recovered partly and was trading at 10,545 points down by 180 points at 1337 hrs.

Yesterday too the Sensex had closed flat at 10,725 points with loss of nine points.

Sensex has been trading at the highest levels and a correction was expected from several quarters.

Leading foreign investment firm JM Morgan Stanley today said that Indian equity market was heavily dependent on liquidity coming from abroad, which made it highly vulnerable.

The National Stock Exchange (NSE) 50 share S&P CNX Nifty index also fell by 73 points in the intra-day trade, touching a low of 3,114 points as compared to the intra-day high of 3,187 points.

Nifty was trading down by 52 points at 3,130 points at 1333 hrs.

as compared to the last close.

All the sectoral indices were trading in the red led by the Metal index which showed a fall by 3.07 per cent at 1337 hrs, followed by the FMCG index which fell by 2.26 per cent and the consumer durable index fell by 1.42 per cent. Only the Capitaql Goods index was holding up by 0.66 per cent.

The BSE Midcap stocks index was down too by 0.94 per cent and BSE Smallcap index was down by 0.59 per cent.

There were few gainers on the Sensex Cipla, BHEL, Reliance Energy, Hero Honda.

Stock trailing on the Sensex were Hindalco, HLL, HDFC, Bharti Televentures, Tata Steel, Maruti, Tata Motors, HDFC Bank, Tata Power and Ranbaxy.

The global crude oil prices softened further to USD 61.48 per barrel at the the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) which will be a relief for investors in the market.

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