Mumbai: The SENSEX extended its losing streak to fourth straight week falling by another 1.33 per cent even as stocks showed mixed pattern trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) during the three-session week that lacked any support from Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs).

The market, which generally was controlled by speculators, witnessed consistent selling by them following a truncated holiday week with the BSE closed on March 25 and 29 on account of "Mohurrum" and "Holi" & "Good Friday".

Taking a cue from FIIs, which had drastically slowed down activity reportedly because of fluid political situation, local operators preferred to book profits in the counters providing better returns.

Though the weekend saw selective support by some funds which attempted to shore up the net asset value (NAV) by picking up a few key counters, brokers were said to be unhappy over issuance of notices by Income tax department to them for filing details of clients entering into transactions of or above Rs 20,000 anytime in the year.

The sentiment was also affected due to only squaring up business in derivatives by speculators in the light of last Thursday of the month, which requires operators to square their holdings in derivatives.

The gains outnumbered losses in the specified group but the SENSEX dipped sharply following falls in 20 index-based shares including heavyweights like HLL, Infosys Tech, ITC, HPCL, RIL, Satyam Computers, Tisco and SBI.

The BSE benchmark 30-share index fluctuated in a range between 3566.08 and 3454.27 before ending the week at 3469.35 as against last weekend's close of 3516.11, netting a loss of 46.76 points. The broad-based BSE-100 Index eased by 6.17 points to finished the week at 1716.28 from previous weekend's close of 1722.45.

However, the BSE-200 index and the Dollex-200 index were quoted fractionally up at 393.90 and 134.39 at the weekend compared with preceding weekend's close of 392.94 and 134.14 respectively. The BSE-500 index improved by 3.41 points to conclude the week at 1164.68 from last weekend's close of 1161.27 while the Dollex-30 Index was down at 583.67 from previous weekend's close of 591.91.

During the three-session week, the total volume of business was merely Rs 3,172 crore on the BSE and Rs 5,695 crore on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) compared to Rs 7,449 crore and Rs 12,432 crore last week respectively.

On the NSE, the S&P CNX Nifty and the S&P CNX Defty also moved down by 8.90 points and 7.15 points to end the week at 1129.55 and 802.05 as against last weekend's finish of 1138.45 and 809.20 respectively. The CNX Nifty Junior, however, recovered by 24.55 points to close the week at 1566.95 from 1542.40 last weekend.

PTI