Sensex crashes by 167.18 pts

Mumbai, Feb 22 (UNI) Continuing with the downslide for the third consecutive day, the Sensex plunged by 167.18 points today on the Bombay Stock Exchange and closed in the red at 14,021.31 points on sustained heavy selling pressure by mutual funds and other operators.

A sudden sell-off gripped the market in late trading on expiry of February 2007 derivative contracts. Much of the fall materialised in the last 50 minutes of trade. Cement, auto, banking shares and pharma pivotals weakened in late trading.

The 30 scrips of sensitive index crashed by 281.59 points in the last three days. The Sensex closed at a low of 14,021.31, a fall of 167.18 points. It came off the lower level after having dropped as many as 210.44 points, to a low of 13,978.05, at intra day trades. But for a relatively firm trend in index heavyweight Reliance Industries (RIL), the fall in the BSE Sensex might have been much steeper.

The BSE BANKEX and AUTO indices also plunged steeply by 177.81 points and 103.53 points respectively. They closed at a low at 6998.97 points for BANKEX index and for AUTO index at 5458.67 points, followed by CG index by 83.92 and finished at 9415.57 points, HC index by 79.69 and quoted at 3708.72 points, PSU index by 78.64 and touched at 5999.36 points and METAL index by 74.81 and closed at 8875.47 points.

The S&P CNX Nifty index of NSE also closed at a low of 4,040.00, a fall of around 56 points from its last close of 4096.20 points before it resumed flat at 4096.65. Later it registered a high at 4126.90 and a low at 4023.15 points respectively. The Nifty March 2007 futures were at 4,064.

The market-breadth was quite weak. Against 1,799 shares declining on BSE, 813 rose. 67 shares were unchanged. The BSE clocked a turnover of Rs 3938 crore.

Although the market was volatile today, the sharpest movement came only in late trading. In early trade, the market had lost ground soon after a strong opening, which was triggered by firm Asian markets and data showing rising inflow of funds from FIIs.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram said on Thursday he expects the inflation rate to moderate as supply shortages would ease in coming days.

Asian and European markets were firm. Key benchmark indices in London, Germany and France were up between 0.5 and 0.6 per cent. In Asia, key benchmark indices in Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea were up between 0.7 per cent and 1 per cent, which did not impact on Indian bourses, brokers pointed out.

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