Mumbai: After an optimistic start, equities turned weak and finished with marked falls pushing the SENSEX down by about 53 points at close on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on March 19 due to fresh onslaught by operators coupled with selling by domestic funds.

Domestic funds led by the Unit Trust of India (UTI) targetted key stocks with their prices at fairly attractive levels to mop up funds to meet anticipated redemption pressure at the end of current financial year.

The BSE benchmark 30-share index which opened higher at 3618.39 and rose further to the intra-day high at 3629.48 at early stages, later met with strong resistance and dipped to 3554.65 before ending at 3560.32 as against close of 3613.28 on March 18, a net fall of 52.96 points or 1.47 per cent.

The broad-based BSE-100 index also dropped by 24.09 points to 1737.10 from previous close of 1761.19.

Citing the indefinite strike by transport operators in Maharashtra that entered third day as one of the reasons for early sell-off in stocks, market sources said the country's largest institution heavily liquidated positions at higher price levels in select counters owing to approaching end of accounting year.

PTI