Sensex crashes by a whopping 388.78 pts

Mumbai, Feb 23 (UNI) The Bulls continued to get a battering for the fourth consecutive day today as the Sensex registered a fall of 388.78 points on the Bombay Stock Exchange and closed in the red at 13,632.53 on account of heavy unwinding of derivative contracts after their expiry.

The Sensex, which had slipped below the psychological 14,000 level in the opening session, witnessed a rapid fall thereafter as selling continued unabated.

The Sensex has plunged by 670.37 points in the last four days.

The 30-shares BSE Sensex was down by 388.78 points (2.77 per cent), to settle at 13,632.53. It had opened firm, at 14,071.27, but began declining immediately afterwards. The benchmark index kept on touching one low after another, 13,568.08 being the last one.

The SML Cap and Bankex indices led the crash by sliding by 268.98 and 239.39 points to close at 6904.43 and 6759.58 points, respectively. They were followed by CG index down by 187.74 to close at 9227.83 points, Mid-cap index by 139.59 and finished at 5664.89 points, IT index by 130.59 and quoted at 5261.84 points, TECK index by 123.18 points and touched at 3703.56 points, PSU index by 123.02 and touched at 5876.34 points, AUTO index by 122.02 points and quoted at 5336.65 points, HC index by 98.10 points and closed at 3610.62 points, METAL index by 76.54 and closed at 8798.93 points and OIL&GAS index by 75.21 and closed at 6536.47 points.

The S&P CNX Nifty index of NSE also declined steeply by 101.10 points, to settle at 3,938.95 points before it resumed high at 4046.00 points, Later it recorded the day's high at 4065.45 points and a low at 3918.20 points.

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