Mumbai: Led by HCL Technologies, equities suffered a sharp setback pushing the SENSEX down by about 32 points at close on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on October 22 on heavy selling pressure from operators as well as Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs).

Investors reacted negatively by pressing heavy sales in blue-chip counters following announcements of dismal Q2 working results by HCL Technologies, VSNL, PSI Data and a few other companies, brokers said.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index which opened on an optimistic note and rose past the psychological 3000-barrier to the intra-day high at 3006.13, later fell back sharply ending at 2965.97 as against yesterday's close of 2998.01, netting a fall of 32.04 points or 1.07 per cent.

The broad-based BSE-100 Index dipped by 12.54 points to 1473.68 from previous close of 1486.22.

HCL Technologies reported a drop in the net profits at Rs 92 crore for the second quarter as against Rs 108 crore in the corresponding period last year despite a rise in the company's sales at Rs 222 crore from Rs 178 crore and VSNL net dropped by 33.27 per cent to 245.9 crore in Q2 due to lower margins.

However, PSI Data extended its losses to Rs 5.17 crore in the second quarter from Rs 1.63 crore in Q2 last year.

Auto shares, which had been in the forefront last week, too came under pressure despite excellent performance by TVS Motors for Q2 with a whopping 197 per cent jump in net profit at Rs 30.9 crore.

PTI