Mumbai: Stocks succumbed to a spate of fresh selling, extending the sell-off to third straight week that saw the Sensex fall by a whopping 6.37 per cent on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).

The Sensex was consistently driven down by another round of negative developments that followed last week's war fears arising out of a major terrorist strike in Jammu. Prominent among adverse factors were the continued stock slide in global markets, particularly Wall Street and NASDAQ as well as erratic monsoon with dry spell in many parts of the country.

The battering was more pronounced in Information Technology (IT) stocks that were hit by the global meltdown, especially US markets dragged down by the unfolding of a series of accounting scandals. The sell-off in IT sector was also triggered by the resignation of Infosys director Phaneesh Murthy.

All the 30 index-based counters registered sharp to moderate losses over the week, as investors wrath was directed to the heavy weighted stocks.

Now that Wall Street, major negative factor, is showing signs of reversal of trend with finishing a tumultuous week on an upbeat note on July 26 and reports that Finance Minister Jaswant Singh has decided to initiate a few changes in tax measures to boost investors confidence, brokers seemed to be optimistic about a recovery during next week as the market is in oversold zone.

PTI